What we call home
by JennaLouise
Summary: For nineteen years, from their place in isolation, through the ugliness and beauty of New York City, four sets of masked eyes have watched in silence, each making their vow to protect the city that they call home - no matter what the cost.
1. Prologue

Notes:

As always, this story will use various sources from the TMNT universe as its back-story.

TMNT and all associated characters are owned by Mirage.

**Prologue:**

As much as he hated to admit it, Donatello couldn't help thinking, as he stood facing a dozen or so Foot Ninja, that he was always right.

Always. Without fail.

And man, he wished that he had been wrong this time.

Against his will almost, he found that he was backing up slowly, carelessly and foolishly allowing himself to be cornered as the Ninja surrounding him advanced.

He was confident that he appeared calm, but he could hear his heart beat drumming crazily in his ears, could feel his heart thumping mercilessly in his chest. His breath was hitching too.

Cool on the outside, perhaps, but inside he was close to panic.

He was the only one left.

And The Foot knew. They knew that of all of the turtles, he was the weakest fighter, the least aggressive, the one who just couldn't bend his scientific mind around the principles of ninjutsu that came so easily to his brothers. His legs just sometimes wouldn't do what they were told, he still wasn't sure he had found his centre… all he was did was tense his stomach muscles. How was it possible that he was the only one still standing?

He gripped his bo harder, and braced himself as his carapace hit the stone wall behind him.

Cornered. It was as good as defeat.

Goddammit, why did he always have to be right?

He gritted his teeth, surprised by the truculent snarling sound which was rumbling out of his throat.

If only this time he hadn't had to prove his point. If only he could have been satisfied, content to let his brothers think he was being over-analytical. If only he could have just let it go.

But he couldn't.

He had to make them see. He had to shut them up, stop their teasing. Had to make them understand the severity of the situation.

And that's why he had led them here. To show them. To prove that he was right.

Of course, he was right all along.

His brothers understood that now.

If they were still alive.

Don felt a shiver crawling up his spine as the thought occurred to him. Had he just cost his brothers their lives? Was he next?

Was it even possible to stop it?


	2. Chapter 1 Our City

**Chapter 1**

Perhaps it was because he was bored, perhaps it was because he had been taken up by one of his characteristic whims, but for some reason – a reason which he could no longer remember – Michelangelo had found himself venturing above ground in daylight, and more uncharacteristically, alone.

It wasn't really 'above ground' – not really – not in the Raphael sense of the word. 'Above ground' to Michelangelo was a subterranean vantage point – a ledge he could sit on and peer through a sewer grate, the small space between the wall and a storm drain, and on this particular occasion, it was a perch on the top rung of the ladder, whilst he slightly lifted the manhole cover, allowing himself a small glimpse of the world which could not accommodate him, no matter how much he felt he willingly conformed to the stereotype of the American teenager.

Whatever the reason, he had only intended on a few moments to check out the score, but when he lifted the manhole cover, he found himself eye-to-eye with the wide, blank stare corpse of a young man, whose body had been flung into the alleyway beneath which Michelangelo now sat.

Although afterwards he found that he could not accurately recall it, Michelangelo knew that he had probably squealed in shock. Probably. But he did remember clearly that the threw the shock off quickly, calmly collected himself, measured his almost-certainly-somewhat-hysteric reaction, checked for passers-by and quickly scrambled out of the sewers.

The man's throat had been cut, and the fleshy skin on his face was blanched and grey, and when Michelangelo looked into the lustreless eyes, he felt a cold emptiness inside him, a kind that he didn't even feel when a corpse crashed down at his feet, killed by his own hand.

Walking home, he sloshed his feet through the sewers, paying little heed to the sodden litter and putrid gems that – never able to escape the scavenger spirit which had ensured their survival in the early days – ordinarily he would have stopped to examine. He felt disheartened by the world that he so desperately wanted to believe was a wonderful place.

It was a sad realisation that it was becoming harder and harder to believe it. And it was that moment – as he wandered home after finding the corpse – that it dawned on Michelangelo that his hatred of crime had finally overtaken his unshakable love of the world.

* * *

It started so quietly, and so gradually that none of the turtles noticed anything was different. Even New Yorkers, who lived in the thick of it, did not seem to realise that something was wrong, right up until it had become an epidemic of confusion and bewilderment, panic, investigation. Most New Yorkers would have sworn that it had just crept up on them, but when they looked back, the turtles knew it had been temperately approaching for some time.

Perhaps they hadn't wanted to see it. Perhaps that's why they weren't aware of anything amiss.

Perhaps it was because under the new – albeit unacknowledged – regime their lives felt a little simpler: the crime had become more localised and kept them busy around East Village. That in itself was nothing new. Trendy as it may have become, East Village still housed a crime enthusiast or two.

But soon it became convenient for Leonardo to allow Raphael to wander up to Harlem and The Bronx on his own, whilst the other three patrolled Manhattan. On one occasion Raphael returned home in the early hours, complaining that he had made it all the way to Queens and then to Brooklyn, that he'd done the circuit because there was nothing that caught his attention.

Not long after Michelangelo had found the dead body of a young man just west of Central Park, Donatello found the bodies of three middle-aged men drifting in The Hudson.

Then there was a spate of ghoulish murders in the Lower East Side, and Raphael took to spending all night out, keeping watch over the most vulnerable locations. For weeks he was tired and grumpy, but his attention and vigilance was warranted: during the course of those weeks the area was declared officially as statistically the most dangerous place to live in the State.

Then after three months the murders stopped.

Raphael started to get bored again. Harlem and The Bronx were quiet. East Village became quiet. He started venturing further and further out of town at night.

April told Leonardo that a record number of young women had been abducted from Chelsea.

Most of their bodies were found dumped by the docks, but some were never discovered. The Police believed that there were bodies in the river, but despite dragging them as thoroughly as possible, there was no trace of the girls.

The disappearances stopped as quickly as they had started, the filing cabinets of Unsolved Abductions and Murders bulged, and Chelsea quickly forgot its missing occupants as it enjoyed a month of little or no crime.

By the time the press had started to proclaim the city's bizarre crime patterns as a "mystery", the public had started to accept the new, startling situation with the obsessive preoccupation of paranoia. With conspiracy-theory headlines plastering the papers on a daily basis, the citizens of New York edged uneasily about their business. Until now, crime had been a fact of life – a harsh reality to which they had become inured over time. Now it appeared that crime was playing some sort of game with them, lulling them into a false sense of security, and New Yorkers were not so complacent not to be suspicious. The times of peace were abruptly shattered in small areas at a time and New Yorkers braced themselves for their turn.

Then one morning Raphael returned home dripping blood and covered in bruises. He told his brothers that he had attempted to intervene into what had appeared to be a bunch of street thugs beating a young man in Central Park. As soon as he had thrown himself into the chaos of it, he had found himself surrounded by thousands – he said thousands, but Leonardo suspected exaggeration – of men, all grouped together and gathering closely. He was surprised that none of them seemed to be alarmed by his appearance, even though he was fairly certain that more than one of them got a good look at him. He had attempted to fight briefly, but after a moment he realised his only option to defend himself was to flee. He was lucky to get away with his life.

He also said that some of them appeared to be skilled in the Martial Arts. He thought some of them were ninja.

It was at the mention of ninja that Donatello's suspicions were aroused.

"The long and the short of it is," he said one morning whilst his brothers munched quietly on their breakfast pizzas, "that the crime here in New York has been seriously compromised."

Raphael grunted. "Meaning?"

"Until now crime has had its favourite spots. We all know the affected areas. But what we are seeing now is a series of random patterns – random because they don't appear to be connected to any social or economic factors. Last month it was Chelsea, now it's The Park. We're getting concentrated crime in localised areas. Then it stops and moves somewhere else. Meanwhile, the rest of the City, even the most dangerous areas, is quiet and uneventful."

Leonardo was frowning. "So what do you think is causing it?"

Donatello's brow furrowed as he considered the question. "I really don't know. If I didn't know it to be impossible, I would say that it was almost as if every single criminal in New York had grouped together to form one massive criminal centre. All I can do it continue to track the incidences and see if I can discern a pattern. One thing I don't like though is the presence of any ninja."

"Agreed," said Leonardo around a mouthful of pizza. That spells The Shredder, and I don't like anything that points to The Shredder."

Michelangelo, who had remained silent throughout the course of the conversation, chimed in: "Dude," he said. "Don't even go there. That's not a hot breakfast topic."

His brothers nodded in unison.

Then the subject was left, but not forgotten.

It was surprising that what followed was the only thing that could have made it worse: that one morning in the summer New York woke up to find that not a single illegal activity could be reported: crime, it seemed, had vanished.

It was at that point that Donatello started to feel a nagging, gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach.

Because all of a sudden he knew what was happening.

And he didn't like it at all.


	3. Chapter 2 The Unfamiliar Side

**Chapter 2**

The absence of crime brought with it a disconcerting quiet.

Everyone was on edge, suspicious, unwilling to accept any innocence in the situation.

Down in the sewers it was no different. The turtles did not spar, they did not mention it to each other, they sat in unnerving silence and watched as the six o'clock news documented the startling change to the city.

But to Donatello, the news reporters did not really touch on the real issue. They concerned themselves with only one, albeit pressing, question: _Where are all the criminals?_

It was at this that Donatello broke the awkward silence that had encased him and his brothers. "They're asking the wrong question," he said softly, not appearing to pay attention to the broken radio in his hand and the screwdriver spinning from his other as its head nestled, securing screws, in amongst the workings.

"What question should they be asking?" Leonardo asked.

"Not, _where are they?_ that's for sure. We all know that there is no conceivable reason why the entire population of criminals, from Mafia to petty thugs, to delinquent teenagers who just like to break stuff, would just vanish. _You_ know they are still here, _I_ know they're still here – even _Mikey _knows it."

"Hey!" Michelangelo muttered indignantly, looking earnestly over his shoulder at Donatello from his seated position on the floor. "I know lots of serious stuff!"

Donatello ignored his youngest brother. "The question they should be asking is _Why?_,and I don't see them addressing that issue at all."

Donatello allowed his eyes to stray across the faces of his three brothers, gazing expectantly at him. Outwardly, Michelangelo looked unworried, but his eyes revealed just a trace of nervousness. Leonardo looked serious and contemplative. On the surface, Raphael appeared rather blank, but the determined fire blazing behind his eyes did not escape Donatello's attention.

Leonardo spoke first: "Why do _you_ think this is happening, Donnie?"

Donatello paused. His gut crawled at the very idea. Should he reveal his thoughts to his brothers? Would vocalising his fears cement them into reality? Could this really be just the beginning? Would the city be better off if he could allow his brothers just to think that this was some fluke, the triumph of good over evil and leave it at that?

Or was he underestimating his brothers? Could they be harbouring similar suspicions?

He paused, let his head nod as though he was giving the question consideration. He cleared his throat, lay the broken radio down and reached behind his head to tighten his bandana.

Raphael sighed hoarsely, impatient.

"I think this is just the beginning and we should prepare for the worst," Donatello muttered uneasily, keeping his eyes fixed on the muted television screen.

"What do you mean?" Leonardo said quietly.

"There is only one explanation in my mind," Donatello answered, now looking at him. "The criminals are here all right. Are they working together? I highly doubt it. There are too many variables – too many impossibilities. But what if they have all gone _silent_? Like… early retirement."

"That's ridiculous, Brainiac!" Raphael snapped in annoyance, as if disappointed by Donatello's answer. "Why would they go silent? These are some of the most stupid and unstoppable assholes out there. They don't know how to stop!"

"Exactly!" Donatello said, pointing a thick finger towards Raphael. "So what does that tell you?"

Raphael shrugged, looking annoyed.

"That they wouldn't stop," Michelangelo offered for him. "It's not in their nature."

"Yes."

"That's what I said, Mike!" Raphael grumbled.

Donatello signed in frustration. "Are you guys not deducing anything from this? What's the only thing that would stop dedicated criminals city-wide? Remember we are talking _everyone _– from crime-lords to graffiti artists! If we're talking about people who will stop at nothing… and yet they have stopped, what does that tell you about whatever has stopped them?"

Three blank stares met his gaze, but eventually Raphael spoke, his voice low and truculent, and spiked with bitter irony: "That it must be pretty fucking powerful."

"Exactly!" Donatello replied. "They are being organised from the top! They are being _made _to stop!"

"By who?"

Donatello nodded. "I sure as hell hope it's not what I think. But to me the whole thing reeks of The Shredder."

Raphael frowned. "The Shredder? Man, that sleaze has been quiet for so long that –"

"Yes he has. And that's what makes me think it's him."

"But Donnie," Leonardo's voice piped up. "You still haven't answered the question. _Why?_"

Donatello let his shoulders lift in a dismissive shrug. "Because. He is up to something. And whatever it is, he is sending us a message. A message he knows we will understand. He's hitting us where he knows it'll get our attention. He's telling us that he is powerful enough to control even the most dominant Mafioso in New York City. How he's doing that, I don't know. And at the same time he is playing with us. He is _daring _us to investigate."

Raphael looked sceptical. "You sayin' this whole thing is aimed at us?"

Donatello met his gaze squarely. "Raph, do you know anyone else powerful enough to manipulate the city than Oroku Saki?"

* * *

Raphael stared out across the City's skyline, letting his thumb skim across the rim of the beer bottle, feeling the pleasant sensation of the wind brushing his skin as he let his legs dangle over the building's edge. He was doing his favourite thing: sitting on a rooftop, drinking beer, and yet he felt uneasy, as though some threat was lingering nearby, out of sight.

Next to him, Casey belched, and met Raphael's annoyed glance with a broad grin from under the hockey mask that was sitting askew on the top of his head.

Raphael shook his head to himself and the two friends remained silent, drinking their beer.

Unaware of the city's events, Casey's intention was to go patrolling and he had turned up at the lair shortly after nine. Raphael had had his own plans though, and met his friend's suggestion with frosty and half-hearted concurrence. When in Casey's mind it was apparent that there was no crime to fight, he had bought a six-pack from a 24-hour convenience store and persuaded Raphael to stay and drink.

Raphael was annoyed. He was itching to go off alone – to investigate. His gut was tickling with an agitated need to get to the bottom of whatever was happening, and being of a sceptical mind, Raphael did not for a moment agree with Donatello's diagnosis of the situation. Raphael was more simplistic. He was sure that there was a more obvious answer, one that didn't entail the paranoid delusions of a genius with not enough hours of sleep in his daily rhythms.

"Yo! Earth to Raphie!"

Raphael's eyes snapped up to find Casey's on him. "What?" he mumbled irritably.

"Jeeze, man," Casey said. "What's with you tonight? You're all distracted and shit. You ain't heard a word I said all night."

"Gimme a break, Case," Raphael answered. "You know there's some weird shit goin' down out here an' I gotta get my head round it." He put the beer bottle down and cracked his knuckles, attempting to expel some of the pent-up energy.

Casey shook his head, looking baffled. "Raph, when do you _ever_ have to _get your head round _stuff? The Raphie I know just dives straight in without thinkin' twice."

"This is different," Raphael said quietly. He shook his head. "So what was you sayin'?"

Casey shrugged. "Don't remember. I forgot it through all the tryin' to communicate with your dumb-ass shit-thick brain."

Raphael waved his hand dismissively at Casey before picking his beer up again, and finishing it in an opulent gulp. "I'm gonna bail, Case," he said, standing, dusting his palms together as if it somehow cemented the finality of the statement.

Casey, however, apparently lacked the subtle observation skills required to read such a gesture and protested petulantly. "Awww, man, we were just getting' started. With the city's crime scene dead we got some time for some serious drinking!"

Sighing, Raphael adopted his less subtle, dealing with Leonardo approach: "Don't mess with me, man," he barked, cocking his head to the side and emphasising his words with a blunt pointing finger in Casey's direction. "I told yer I gotta take some time out, so next time open your waxy ears and listen, for Christ's sake!" He gave an exasperated gesticulation with his arms, fisting his hands, to make sure Casey knew for sure that he was serious and didn't want to fight his way out of it any further.

Casey was reading him loud and clear, but rather than shake his head and sighing in frustration the way Leonardo did, he had allowed a smile to spread across his face and was even suppressing a few giggles.

"Jeeze, man, what gives?" Raphael snapped.

"You get awful theatrical when you're angry, Raphie!" Casey teased. "But you're right. April'll be needing some special _attention_ tonight."

"Casey, I don't wanna know," Raphael warned as he started to walk away. "April's like my sister."

"Damn yeah," Casey replied, calling out to his departing friend. "A really hot sister who's unbelievable in bed!"

Cringing, Raphael took his leave, scaling the side of the building stealthily, in the shadows, aware of Casey's eyes following him as he descended into the sewers by the first manhole he came across.

Casey didn't have to know that he had no attention of going home.

* * *

Two days ago Donatello thought he had cracked the code. He had let himself believe that he had deciphered the pattern. He had even come close to plotting the next crime location and matched it with what was at the time a fairly accurate time-line.

Then the whole system had been thrown out.

When the crime stopped, the first thing to go was the time-line. He had predicted a crime spree in Greenwich Village, due to kick off at approximately ten PM on Thursday evening. Except now it was Saturday and there hadn't been a whiff of a broken law throughout New York City.

With the time line gone, the pattern fell quickly apart.

"The cycle is much bigger than I anticipated," he explained to Leonardo who was now staring at him in confusion, probably wishing that he hadn't asked about his brother's progress in analysing the crime data. "So the rhythms are more minute than I recognised at first. We're looking at multiple sub-cycles, and the pattern seems to be following a Fibonacci sequence of growth – like the rabbit breeding, and the Golden Ratio is inherent therein, so I should be able to calculate –"

"Whoa whoa, Donnie, what the hell? 'Golden Ratio'? Rabbits? Fibo-what-now?"

Donatello glanced up. "Fibonacci," he answered impatiently, although allowing a grin to touch his mouth. "You should look it up, Leonardo. You may find that you and Fibonacci share some common ground."

Leoanrdo shook his head to himself. "Whatever. Don, what is all this supposed to mean in turtle-terms?"

"It means I thought I'd solved it, but if I'd solved it then The Village should be getting its streets torn apart by now. So I've missed something and it's back to the drawing board."

Leonardo smiled. "Gotcha."

"Leo?" Donatello called as his brother exited his room. "Be sure to look up the Golden Ratio too and its inverse: 1.618. Bet you're pleasantly surprised."

* * *

Raphael travelled underground, moving quickly and sloshing his feet noisily in the water gurgling along the tunnels which formed the warren of the city's sewer system, the world that Raphael had grown to know so intimately over the past nineteen years.

Whilst he very publicly admitted to detesting the sewers and all that they represented to him, privately he harboured a homebody's love for his underground world. He loved the old brickwork, the rawness, the grit and the earthy stench which had nurtured his childhood.

For years he fantasised about escaping the restriction the sewers had come to represent to him, but he was surprised to find that his fantasies were rather unexplored and untested. He could never really entertain the idea for long before the pangs hit, deep in his stomach, like an innate pining for what he had come to know as home.

For years Raphael had patrolled the midnight streets of New York, but discipline, practice and caution kept him in residential districts, the derelict sites on the edges of town, the poverty-stricken areas.

But tonight was different. Tonight he felt himself compelled, drawn deeper into the heart of the city.

He emerged on ground level in a quiet side alley and climbed the building quickly, without the need for any equipment. The brickwork of the buildings was aged, and provided many climbing opportunities which some of the more modern buildings, with their smooth exterior walls, just didn't offer. Confident he had made it up unseen, Raphael scuttled belly down to the edge of the building, consciously stifling the gasp of awe that his lungs couldn't help but pull in.

The City.

Times Square.

Neon lights, a vibrant, electrified pulse in the air; hundreds of people scurrying around on the streets, like little insects to Raphael on the rooftops, even though the nighttime hours were crawling on; bright lights of coffee shops still serving, outdoor seating; noise – the City racket which never ceased and Oh God how Raphael loved it: wailing police sirens, the rubble of traffic, screaming horns, the gentle hum of human voices, chatting, laughing, arguing; the droning chime of buskers.

It was all so… so real. So ordinary.

So alive, so late at night but still so alive. This was Raphael's city. His home.

Raphael had never really ventured this close to mainstream New York before. He was more at home where crime was more at home.

"Curiosity killed the cat," Raphael mumbled aloud to himself as he edged closer, peering over the edge of the building.

Below him a man and a woman sat at a small, round, metal table outside a 24-hour coffee bar. They had steaming paper cups in front of them and were munching happily on glazed donuts. The darkness of the night was of no concern to them: the streets were illuminated by the welcoming glow of the 24-hour vendors, the music of nearby buskers lifting the mood. The couple were laughing and talking, unconcerned with the grief and grit of the harsh city life, warm despite the cold.

Raphael watched them with envy aching in his gut.

For a moment he allowed himself to hate the happy couple, but quickly his rational mind over-rid the bitterness with a calm logic.

"If The Shredder is back, and if Donnie's right, if his plans are city-wide, then all of this will be destroyed," he said, again out loud, although his husking voice was torn away by the wind.

Raphael made his way home on the rooftops, hopping over alleyways where possible, using a grappling hook where not. As he travelled, he thought about how he hated the city, how he longed to be elsewhere, and how simultaneously he loved the city, how it would kill him to leave it.

And Raphael had to laugh at the irony, the paradoxes which continued to fill his mind, even after he recognised them and chided himself for his dual thought-process.

He really didn't know whether he was coming or fucking going.

But there was one thing he was certain of:

Something was going on in the city, something unnatural. And love it or hate it, Raphael made a silent vow to himself to protect his home: the city he loathed but could not bear to be parted from.


	4. Chapter 3 The Epicentre

**Chapter 3**

Leonardo opened his eyes with a start, recognising only for a moment that his consciousness was chasing away the fragments of dream images, the world which moments ago he had inhabited.

He had jerked awake, and found himself up on his hands and knees in his bed, with a cold sensation of fear clawing at his throat, and the unmistakable stirring of dread deep in his solar plexus.

_Think back._

He pushed his mind, tried to retrieve the dream. But all he could hold onto were two words, words that he could still hear in a truculent and melodic tones of a voice he knew intimately and feared, and the Japanese inflections accented the words in his mind: "Die tonight".

He moaned softly to himself and dropped his neck forward, pushed himself back on his haunches and stretched his arms forward, feeling the pleasant pain of the loosening of muscles in spasm.

"Leo?"

He retained the Yoga position. "What?"

Donatello's voice chimed in quietly: "Sorry to wake you so early…"

"I was already awake," Leonardo replied, but then realised as he spoke that it was probably not true. It was more likely that his brother knocking on the door had roused him from his sleep.

_Die tonight._

Donatello cleared his throat and remained silent.

Leonardo felt the stretch in his biceps for a moment longer and sat up on his knees slowly. He looked at his brother.

Donatello was still garbed, but his mask was hanging around his neck.

"Donnie did you even go to bed last night?" he asked.

Donatello shrugged off the question. "Like I said, sorry to wake you so early." He glanced at Leonardo's bedside clock and when he followed his gaze, Leonardo saw that it was quarter to five. "But I think we have a serious problem?"

"A bigger problem than New York City without crime?" Leonardo enquired dryly.

"I've cracked the code."

"You have?"

"I had it all wrong, Leo. I was looking for _when_. But what I should have been looking for is _where._"

Leonardo climbed out of bed and reached for his bandana. "I could have sworn you said you were already looking at geography," he mumbled.

"I was, but I was looking for the next target." The two brothers started to walk together into the living room. The lair was in darkness and the sound of Michelangelo snoring could be heard from his room.

Donatello continued as they walked. "But then it occurred to me. I've been looking for the next stage of an incomplete pattern. But what if the crimes _were _the pattern."

"I'm not following."

"Let me finish," Donatello snapped. "The crimes stopped. If the crimes are the pattern then it means the pattern is complete. The city is a grid, Leo. And for months the crime patterns have circled an epicentre. The Shredder orchestrated this, and now he is just sitting back and waiting for us. He is waiting for us to decipher the pattern and then to go there."

"Go there? Where?"

_Die tonight._

"To the epicentre."

"Which is where?"

"The Stock Exchange."

Leonardo stopped and faced his brother. "The Stock Exchange? Are you crazy?"

Donatello's eyes were wide and bloodshot, tired. His shook his head as he spoke, his voice cracking just above a whisper. "Leo, this is so much bigger than we thought. This is it. It's not just the city, but global economy that's at stake here."

"You're telling me that The Shredder is waiting for us at The Stock Exchange?" Leonardo paused. "Donnie, bro, get some sleep. That's a little far-fetched, even for The Shredder. I mean, that place is crawling with people. We can't just waltz in…"

"Goddammit Leo, don't you understand what I'm telling you?" Donatello pressed, his voice still hushed as though he feared the presence of conspirators. "Whatever he is up to is not just about us, not just about this city. Whatever he is planning is big. And you can bet your blue bandana that it's not going to be pretty."

Leonardo put the kettle on and yawned. "Then if it's so big then why is he just waiting for us to figure it out? This smells way too much like a trap."

Donatello sighed frustratedly. "It is a trap. It's a complex trap. Even I haven't figured it all out yet. But I know this. We are part of his plan and if we don't investigate the cost to the city will be incalculable."

* * *

Raphael laughed. "Donnie, you credit The Shredder with way too much intelligence. He ain't no stock-broker."

"Raph, use your head," Leonardo scolded. "I'm not sure I agree with Donnie's diagnosis, but what I do know is that The Shredder is intelligent and could outsmart you no trouble. And if recent events have shown us anything it's that he has acquired a level of power and kudos in the city that is immeasurable. So if we're going to act on this then it has to be with out minds. We can't have you storming in like it's one of your vigilante escapades!"

"Kiss my shell, _Fearless _Leader. OW! MIKEY!"

Michelangelo, seated on the floor, withdrew his foot. He stared solemnly at Raphael. "Dude, drop it with the machismo. This is serious."

Raphael frowned and rubbed his bruised leg, but silenced nevertheless.

Leonardo ignored his two youngest brothers. "Donnie. What do you think they are going to do?"

"I don't know, Leo." Donatello said irritably. "But we can't afford to wait around for it."

Leonardo nodded.

_Die tonight._ The words echoed in his mind.

He sighed. "OK. Here's what we are going to do. Don, Raph, I need you two to get some sleep."

"Jeez, Leo, I'm –" Raphael started.

"No arguments. You were out all night and Don, you've been up all night. Neither of you have had any sleep for two days. I need your minds fresh. We can't afford mishaps. You've both got four hours. We leave this afternoon."

"Whoa whoa," Raphael said, standing up. "Shouldn't we go at night? The place'll be crawling with Wall Street suits."

"Exactly. We need to see if anything is going on. We're going to survey the place in daylight. Then we're going to hide out. Then we are going to find Oroku Saki and whatever he has waiting for us."

"What are you going to do?" Donatello asked.

Leonardo frowned. "I'm going to try and have a chat with our friend Saki."

* * *

Leonardo sat in the dojo. He breathed. The room was dusky with the musk of incense and the lair had fallen into silence.

He breathed.

_Die tonight_.

He held onto the voice for a moment. Through waking, the voice had already become distorted and specific. Now it was The Shredder's voice. Had it not been before? Leonardo wasn't sure. He thought it was, as the voice rang in his mind in the first moments of wakefulness. But now….

_Die tonight._

He pressed his mind into the boundaries of consciousness, travelling instantly to unfamiliar but practiced lands. His senses felt sharp and he could feel the brush of the breeze on his skin, could hear the sound of the air, felt the scent of fresh dew in his nostrils. His eyelids fluttered.

He explored the darkness, feeling his way down the pathway.

He focused. 'Saki,' his mind challenged. 'Come forth.'

For a moment there was nothing, and then in front of him an image started to fall into place. A rat. Splinter, but as he was. A pet rat. The rat made a soft squeaking sound.

And then he felt eyes on him. In the darkness he saw the dilating pupils of reptilian eyes. 'Donnie?' he whispered.

'I'm sleeping, Leo,' Donatello answered. 'I'm not supposed to be here.'

The image faded quickly, and Leonardo felt himself reaching for his brother. He felt himself losing his stance. And then suddenly there it was: a face: human, male, Japanese, youthful. "You must proceed with caution," the face urged, and as the strength in the voice startled Leonardo out of his trance, he heard the words as they disappeared from his awareness. "Or you will all die tonight."

* * *

It was two o'clock when the Turtles set off. The travelled south by foot, under ground, sloshing their feet through the sewer canal. They knew the labyrinthine maze of tunnels and catacombs intimately and there was no necessity for talk. Even so, the lack of conversation was uncharacteristic of the four brothers as they marched in silence towards the subterranean realms of the Financial District.

Donatello appeared to have slept poorly and was quiet and stolid-eyed. Michelangelo, too, was unenthusiastic and jittery. Raphael was irritable and, quite uncharacteristically, was not exhibiting his usual pre-battle blood lust. Leonardo himself could not find the words to fill the silence.

So they continued onward, with the whirring sound of gushing water and the distant shrieking of the sewer rats in their ears, the foul stench of the city's struggling drainage system in their nostrils and the pulsating thumping of the city's rhythm pounding in their chests.

And Leonardo found his mind touching those words again. Die tonight. _They know,_ he told himself silently. _And so do I._ And the realisation almost stopped him in his tracks. _We all know that we approach the epicentre with this foreboding sense of doom. I am leading my brothers to die tonight._


	5. Chapter 4 Observations in the Dark

**Chapter 4**

The New York Stock Exchange. A mayhem of rocketing blood pressure, throbbing temples and the contagious, highly-strung anxiety levels of the collective group. Young men in expensive suits embroiled still in their own arrogance; older men with stress-induced silver-hair framing bald pates; well-dressed, attractive women; hard-nosed, clumsily-dressed women. A building full of purpose.

The Turtles had scrambled up from the sewers through the buildings lower levels and quickly secreted themselves into the ventilation system. They scurried through the ducts in stealthy silence, but now that they had adopted a suitable vantage point, through a vent on the Trading Floor, they paused for breath, and to regroup.

There was an infectious buzz of life, pulsing and vivacious, and Donatello began to feel the surge of excitement thumping in his gut. For an insane moment, he felt compelled to leap out of the duct and join in the commotion.

The sight of the technology, too, was exhilarating. Floors littered with computers and equipment, and screens of share prices and indices boasting eye-catching wonder.

"Damn," muttered Raph in a breathy voice over Donatello's shoulder. "No wonder these guys have three heart attacks a year."

It was the first full sentence to be spoken since they left the lair. It broke the silence and for a moment the Turtles exchanged excited whisperings about their location, that they never thought they would be here.

"OK, dudes," Michelangelo eventually offered. "Where to now?"

"We need to cover all floors," Donatello whispered, handing out three headsets. "Raph, take the basement levels, Mike the next section and Leo take the top floors. I'll cover the middle. Keep in communications. Don't, under any circumstances, lose contact. OK?"

"Sure thing, Donnie," Leonardo mumbled.

"Yeah, right… anything else?" Raphael asked, seeming distracted.

"Yeah," Michelangelo answered. "Be cool and don't get busted, bro."

"OK, guys," Donatello began, but was quickly interrupted by Michelangelo:

"Uhh, Donnie… what exactly are we looking for?"

"Anything out of the ordinary."

"Ordinary. This is The New York Stock Exchange! What the fuck is ordinary?!"

"Raph!" Donatello hissed, making a slashing motion across his throat. "Cut it out, for crying out loud."

"I guess any sign of The Foot would be out of the ordinary," Leonardo suggested.

"Yeah, right," Raphael mumbled.

Donatello secured his headset in place. "Two hours, fellas. Then we're back here, OK?"

"You're the boss," Raphael mumbled and was the first to scuttle out of sight.

The remaining three exchanged silent nods of understanding, and followed their brother down the shaft.

* * *

It was Michelangelo who came across the maintenance men, snacking in the canteen. His first observation was that they were eating sushi from a packet and this thought offered a strand of constipated amusement to Mikey, who had to clamp his hands over his mouth to stop his giggles from becoming audible. His stomach growled with envy.

It was only when he gave the concept its due consideration that his suspicions were aroused.

There were seven of them, seated around a table. They were all dressed in boiler suits and had nametags and security passes clipped to their belts. Initially, they looked like ordinary maintenance crew, but when Michelangelo peered through the grate carefully enough, he was able to see that they were Japanese, and that they were speaking to each other in soft Japanese. They were all young – in their early thirties at the latest, and trim, like they worked out a lot. And of course, the Sushi.

Michelangelo whispered into his mouthpiece: "Donnie, you're smart. I gotta question for you."

After a pause and a brief flurry of static, Donatello's voice crackled in his ear: "Can't really talk now, Mikey – The Dow Jones is about to hit 11,130."

"What the fuck? Don, seriously… the dudes who… you know, _clean _the joint and fix stuff…"

"Maintenance?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. Maintain stuff. Should I be concerned that they are health conscious, athletic Japanese dudes?"

There was a pause. "I don't know. Stereotypes aren't my area… Whoa. The NASDAQ's down again. Figures."

"Donnie! Quit the stock stuff."

"Yeah, Don." Leo's voice tuning in. "It sounds like Mike has found something."

"We're in a multi-cultural society, Leo," Donatello's voice barked. "We can't start crying 'Foot' every time we see someone Japanese."

"But they're _all _Japanese, dude!" Michelangelo whispered urgently.

"All? How many?" Don's voice, with a bit more urgency.

"Seven at the moment – in the canteen. I'm hungry, dude."

"Mikey, quit thinkin' about your stomach!" Raph's voice mumbled from afar. "Where the hell are you anyhows?"

"I'm on the fifth floor," Michelangelo whispered. "The canteen."

"OK, guys." Leo's voice, taking charge. "Let's seize this. We may be looking out for the blue-collars here. Find them. Tail them. Mikey, I want you to stay with the seven that you're watching now. Don't let them know you're there, but follow them. If they split up, tail the alpha."

"Gotcha dude."

"Raph, where are you?"

"Jeeze, Leo, I'm hanging upside down from a missing ceiling panel listening to your dumb-ass shit."

"What?! You bone head – get yourself concealed!"

"Yes, _Master_." Raph's voice husked.

Leonardo sighed in frustration. "Donnie, drag yourself away from the markets for a moment – it was your whim that brought us here."

"OK Leo, I'm sorry I just…"

"Save it. Find The Foot!"

* * *

Trading ceased at five, and the building quickly emptied when the markets closed. For a while the New York Stock Exchange was in silence, and the Turtles waited patiently in their own corners. At seven, from his position in the ceiling panels of the foyer, Raphael watched through a crack in a damaged tile whilst the night crew appeared. Cleaners, maintenance men, security guards. "Man, there is something awful familiar about these guys," Raphael whispered into his mouthpiece from his position on the ground floor, as he watched the staff enter the building.

"How so?" Donatello's voice vibrated softly in his ear.

"The way they carry themselves. Posture. They got Martial Arts. I would swear they are ninjas."

"Japanese?"

"I can't tell from here. I'm in the ceiling."

"How did you get into the ceiling, you knucklehead?!"

In his darkness, Raphael grinned to himself but growled down the headset at Leonardo's comment. "What, Leo, you never used your initiative before??"

"Raph, shut your beak and listen. Listen for conversation. We need to know for sure. We could be barking up the wrong alley."

Raphael grunted, but complied. He lowered himself onto his stomach and peered through the crack into the building's foyer.

Three men, in security uniform replaced the day security at the door. They ambled around quite casually in the foyer whilst the night crew filed in.

"Well, here's your first problem," Raphael whispered.

There was a pause, and then Donatello's voice replied: "What?"

"Security ain't searchin' the staff. Day Security were. But these guys ain't. They're just lettin' 'em stroll right through. No metal detection, bag search, nothing'. And another thing…"

Another pause. "Yes?" Leo's voice. Impatient.

"How many guys do you think a building this size needs to clean it?"

"I don't know. Quiet a few. More if something needs repairing, which for a building this age wouldn't be unusual."

"Quite a few. More. OK. Cos, so far I've counted fifty-odd people coming in, and they ain't slowin'. They all seem to be arriving in groups, too."

"Damn, he's right!" Donatello's voice piped up over the transmission.

Raphael looked around. "Donnie, where are you?"

"I've located the CCTV centre. I'm watching it on the screens."

"Donatello, don't get too carried away," Leonardo's voice ordered. "Don't allow yourself to become visible. Some of the security guards will be headed in your direction."

"Sure sure, Leo," Donatello answered dismissively. "But this is perfect. We've got feeds to every floor here. Mikey, what's your location – I need you to get here – twelfth floor, and cover me while I see what I can do with this equipment."

In his position above the ceiling tiles, Raphael waited.

"Mikey, seriously, quit fooling around. Raph's in the foyer and we need him there for now, Leo's running the ship and I need your help."

Silence.

Raphael held his breath, suddenly aware of his heart beat drumming in his ears.

"Mikey?" Leonardo's voice, laced with alarm. "It's not the time for jokes, Mikey."

Silence.

Raphael lay still, listening as Leonardo started to bark into their ears. "Don, can you identify his location from his headset? Or his cell, or anything?"

But obviously, Donatello was three steps ahead of him. "Negative!" he replied, and Raphael could hear the sound of buttons being pushed on one of Donatello's portable devices. "His cell is switched off, and there are no trackers on the headsets."

"You moron, Brainiac," Raphael growled into his mouthpiece. "You put trackers on everything! The one time we need it…."

"Raphael, cool it!"

There was silence, and Raphael became uncomfortably aware of the sound of his own breathing, agitated and raspy, as anxiety started to claw at his gut. But he was not in the silence for long. Leonardo's voice eventually returned, authoritative and commanding. "OK. Stick to the plan. Raph, stay on the ground floor and keep a check of all who come into the building. The Foot have no reason to believe that we are here so just stay alert and let us know if you encounter trouble. Stay in the shadows. Don't let yourself get seen. We need the element of surprise, but we need to know what they're up to first. Donnie, get into that security room. If you get company, knock them out. Whatever you have to do to get that CCTV working to our advantage."

"On it, Captain."

Leonardo went on: "Mikey's probably just dropped his headset somewhere in the air shafts, but I'm not taking any chances. I'm going to look for him. Don, if you get anything on the CCTV let me know."

"Sure thing."

Then there was static in Raphael's ear, and he settled down to watch the enemy storm the building in a quiet and orderly manner. He tried not to think about Mikey. Tried not to let his imagination conjure up any possibilities about where his little brother was, or why he had lost communications. Leonardo was probably right, he had almost certainly lost his headset – idiot that he was, but try as he may, Raphael could not push away the gnawing sensation in his stomach. He could feel his head starting to throb, and his muscles started to twitch with frustration, and a sudden feeling of cold, pessimistic dread took a quick hold, and for a minute he felt like he was choking.

_Cool down, Hothead, _he told himself, hearing the words in Leonardo's voice. _It ain't over til it's over._

He lay still, breathing hard, watching as people continued to trickle into the building, unsearched, unchecked, met by familiar nods from the security guards, into one of world's most vulnerable buildings.

* * *

Michelangelo opened his eyes and squinted through the fog of a bleary headache. He was in a small dark room, and had no recollection of how he got there. His wrists were tied behind his shell, and he fumbled for his nunchukas, and was unsurprised to find that he had been disarmed.

Shit.

The room was cold. Double shit.

The last thing he remembered was following the maintenance men. Four of the seven had gone their separate ways, but three stayed together and having already identified the dominant member as being part of this small group of three, he had kept as close to them as possible and scuttled along through the ventilation shafts, following the sounds of their voices.

But the air duct was narrow, and Michelangelo was scrambling along as quickly as he could, and…. it was possible he _may _have banged his carapace into the side of a vent when he took the opportunity of vision to catch a peak at the three men he was stalking.

The three maintenance men had stopped walking, and exchanged urgent glances. Michelangelo was so used to The Foot Ninja's masks, that over the years he had allowed himself to begin to think of them as inhuman. So, when vent was removed in a flash, and he found himself staring into three Japanese faces, he still couldn't believe that they were Foot Ninja.

"Hi!" he grinned at them, offering them a small, three-fingered wave.

And that was it.

They were Foot Ninja alright. Ordinary maintenance men would have screamed and run, or announced that there was a monster in the building. But no. He was hauled out of the shaft, knocked out and tied up so quickly that he didn't feel a thing. That's Foot Ninja for you.

Man, he was cold. And getting sleepy. Why was it so cold? It was like ice was being poured into the room around him.

"Hey!" he called out, to no-one, to anyone. "Turtles are cold blooded; don't you know that?"

But there was, of course, no reply.

He was starting to shiver.

He wondered where he was. He wondered where his brothers were. He wondered how long it would take his cold-blooded body to succumb to the falling temperature.


	6. Chapter 5 A Brother's Burden

**Chapter 5**

To Leonardo, it was more a question of logic than passion.

Michelangelo was haphazardous in his actions to say the least. He was always running into trouble. Not the Raphael kind of trouble where he would find himself the centre of some gruesome battle, not the Donatello kind of trouble where his continuous thirst for truth and his curiosity would lead him into situations that would have been better left dormant, but the Mikey kind of trouble, where things just happened, a magnet for bizarre mishaps, and flukes and accidents seemed to fall around him, as they could only to Mikey.

Mikey was like the Turtles' ward. Nineteen years old and still in need of constant supervision. He would inevitably find the wrong button to push, a catastrophic lever to pull, someone dangerous to annoy, an enemy to aggravate, and then he would wonder why the Mikey kind of trouble would rear its ugly head again.

But Leonardo knew his youngest brother. He would hate to be searching for Raphael. There was no controlling Raphael; no guarantees that he would have kept to his instructions. Today was a perfect example. He had already broken the agreed protocol and ventured from the air ducts into the ceilings. He would hate to be searching for Donatello. Donatello was too easily distracted, one sight of Technology, something out of the ordinary and Donatello was investigating. But he wasn't searching for the middle brothers. He was searching for Mikey. Mikey would not have left the ventilation system. Mikey would not have broken protocol without alerting his brothers. That, albeit small, was of comfort.

Leonardo was the eldest brother; the proclaimed leader; naturally the most responsible. He should have checked on his brothers more frequently, shouldn't have allowed them to scatter about without support. He should have taken control. Donatello was responsible and completely capable, but he lacked the strategy and the battle-smarts to fully orchestrate an operation of this magnitude, with so much danger. Leonardo was so intimidated by the subject matter, and so comforted by Donatello's automatic knowledge and intellect that he had allowed his vision to be clouded, had simply taken a step back, and accepted Donatello's theories and tactics. He rebuked himself silently. He should have taken his share, shouldered at least a fraction of the burden.

He crawled through the ventilation system to the fifth floor, Mikey's last known whereabouts, and located the canteen with ease.

In the duct alongside the canteen, just by a vent with a clear view into the room, Leonardo found some biscuit crumbs. He rolled his eyes to himself and grinned. Hadn't Mikey's moaned that he was hungry? Mikey had been carrying biscuits around in his belt for years, ever since they were children and once found themselves locked in their bedrooms, at Splinter's punishing hand. It had been Raph's fault. Raph and Leo had become sucked into an argument, and Don and Mikey had routed for each brother, until a fight had evolved. Surprisingly, not between Raph and Leo, but between Raph and Don, who had taken Leo's side. The offending incident resulted in all four turtles confined to the bedroom without dinner. Mikey had cried and wailed that he was hungry, and was never seen without a stash of food hidden somewhere about his person since.

Leo rolled the remnants of the crumbs between his fingers thoughtfully. "Where are you, Mikey?" he whispered aloud. There was one sole occupant of the canteen, a cleaner, running a mop along the floor with nimble, athletic movement. "Will have to leave The Foot to Raph and Don," Leonardo whispered aloud again. "I have to find Mikey."

He paused and observed the room. The maintenance men that Mikey had been tailing would have left the room and Mikey would have followed. Leo started to shuffle along the shaft, in the direction of the door.

He moved stealthily, and cautiously. Somewhere, Mikey would have left a clue. He just had to find it.

* * *

As he watched the flickering screens of the monitors, Donatello became aware that he had been slowly pulling his head into his shell. Rebuking himself, he straightened his spine and calmed himself with a determined sigh.

So far there was no sign of the security guards.

The old familiar sense of dread has sitting firmly in the pit of is stomach. "Raph, can you hear me?" he muttered.

"What, Brainiac?"

"We need to get out of here. This is bad."

There was silence on the line. Raph's voice was soft and muffled, from the insulation in the ceiling tiles, most likely. "Why? What have you found?"

"Security tapes. I've been watching them. I think I know how The Shredder has managed to orchestrate the criminal population of the City. And why this is the epicentre."

"How? Why?"

Donatello held his breath. "I'll…. I'll tell you later, but, bro, trust me, I need you to keep your wits about you."

"Shit, Donnie, you're talkin' like Leo. Either tell me or don't tell me, but spare me the lecture."

"Raph!" Don's voice fell to a harsh whisper. "Trust me. Keep it cool. This is much bigger than we thought. If you find Leo or Mikey, get them and keep them with you. We need to get out of here and reformulate our plan. This strategy isn't going to work. We just need to find Mikey. Then we can split."

"We don't split from nothin'! Donnie? Dammit, Don, answer me!"

Don ignored his younger brother and returned his attention to the screens.

He had just spent an hour viewing the night tapes. "Leo," he whispered into the mouthpiece.

"Little busy right now, Donnie." Leo's voice was hushed and strained, and if Don didn't know better, he would have guessed that his elder brother was stressed. But Leo was never _stressed. _Not unless – Don shook away the new surge of anxiety and continued:

"Did you hear my conversation with Raph?"

There was no answer.

"Leo, I know what's happening, and things are about to get nasty. We're not equipped to deal with it. We need to get outta here! Find Mikey and make your way back to the basement. Just let me know when you find him."

But Leo didn't reply.

The anxiety gripped him tighter. "Leo? Come on!" he scolded into the mouthpiece.

And he only happened to glance at the live feed from the foyer. And when he saw it, he swallowed a sharp intake of horrified breath.

To his surprise, Leo appeared – on the screen. With security guards on either side of him. Each man had him by an arm.

"Leo!" he bellowed, allowing his voice to pitch. "What's happening?" His breath started to shake. It was all going wrong.

The three of them stood in the foyer: Leo looking stoic, but pale, and the two security guards. Each guard was holding one of his swords. One of the men looked carefully at Leo, and reached over and removed his headset, and let it fall to the ground. Promptly he trod on it and Donatello winced as his earpiece crackled noisily.

One of the men was talking, as if making an announcement to the building, but of course Don couldn't hear him. He held his breath and watched the screen. His mind was racing crazily, running data, questions, plausible answers. Don's breath hitched again as he realised that their presence was no longer a secret, and the battle had now begun.

* * *

Raphael had ceased to be surprised that people were still arriving at nine o'clock. By this time he had no doubt in his mind that The Shredder was behind this and that Donnie had been right all along. There must have been a few hundred people enter the building, happily and conspicuously disguised as blue-collar shift workers, and the three security guards continued to stand at the door of the foyer, greeting each arrival with a formal nod before waving them through the security gates.

_Security my ass. _

Raphael was surprised, however, when he saw two more security guards escorting his eldest brother into the foyer. Bold as brass. Leonardo stared ahead of him, stolid-eyed and tight mouthed. The men flanking him had hands tightly on his biceps and were each grasping one of his katanas in the others.

When the horrible sound of the crushed headset hit Raphael's ears and static resonated crazily in his head, he tore his own off, rage spiking in his temples, and his heart rocketing mercilessly in his chest. He stared down at his brother, who showed no trace of any emotion, and he could feel his hands beginning to clench into fists.

Then one of the men spoke, calling out around the foyer in a voice rich with Japanese inflections. "We know you are here, Turtle. Reveal yourself to save your brother."

One of the katanas rose up to Leonardo's throat.

And then Raphael saw it: Leonardo's head inched backwards, away from the blade, his eyes glittered and his chest started to pound up and down. Raphael flinched: Leo was frightened. Immediately, he cursed Leo in his head. It was so much easier to be objective when his leader showed no emotion. Emotion made him his brother, and objectivity went right out the fucking window.

He pressed himself into the tiles beneath him, and glared down at his brother's captors. Ordinarily he would have plunged down to the ground without hesitation for thought and kicked the shit out of them, but having spent the last four hours watching The Shredder's empire file into the building, and being on unfamiliar territory had jarred Raphael's instincts. Whatever they had become embroiled in was big, and Raphael, in his ignorance, was in no position to follow his usual hot-headed methods. What should he do? To reveal himself would inevitably lead to his capture also, leaving only Donnie to find them. But Donnie would find them. If anyone could, it was Donnie. But Donnie was a vulnerable ninja – strong, but easily thrown off. Could Donnie stand his ground without his brothers? Or would their absence be enough to spur him on? Or what if it was all a trap? Was it so unlikely that they would kill Leo anyway? and then kill him? Could he take that chance? Raphael snarled to himself, already impatient and the process for considering one's actions. The long and short of it was, that he didn't have the first clue how best to respond.

The blade was thrust deeper against Leonardo's throat, touching flesh and Raph saw Leo's body shudder.

"Turtle, we know you are here. We will kill your brother."

Raphael growled.

"You have until the count of three… One."

If he dropped down, he might be able to fight the men off his brother – they might have a chance.

"… Two…"

Raphael held his breath, and silently removed the ceiling tile beneath him. Slowly, he lowered himself upside down, into the room, his feet securing him to the steel support above the ceiling panels. None of the individuals in front of him appeared to notice that he was hanging upside down behind them, even when the tails of his bandana fluttered dangerously closed to the back of Leonardo's neck. Raphael couldn't resist a quick smirk: Leo not scoring too highly on the ninja awareness test.

"… Three. OK! Kill him!"

The katana blade rose up, glinting in the fluorescent lighting, and in a flash Raphael whipped it out of the ninja's hand from above. Leo's eyes had squeezed shut, but when the killing blow didn't fall, Raphael saw one of his eyelids edge open. Raph wasn't an expert with a sword by any means, but he knew how to use it. He grasped it in both hands and from his upside down position held it at the disarmed ninja's neck.

"You wanna let my brother loose, Buster?" he hissed.

Leonardo was looking back, up at him, and Raphael saw a smile touch his mouth.

But then there was a whoosh, and a terrible pain in his leg. He lost his grip and dropped to the floor, still grasping the katana. He kept his balance and landed on his feet and as he did a bolt of pain ripped through his left leg. A quick glance down revealed a small shuriken embedded in the flesh of his thigh. "You fuckers!" he growled at them all, not really sure who had thrown the shuriken. "Playin' dirty – ain't that a little too easy for ya?" The pain rocketed up and down his leg, but he stood it, and gripped the katana, and a single sai.

The two holding Leonardo, gripped him tighter, and the other katana blade was once again raised to his throat.

Raphael breathed harshly.

"Drop your weapons, Turtle or he dies."

"Oh enough with that already!" Raphael barked. "You already proved you ain't got the balls to do it!"

"Drop your weapons! We will not warn you again."

Leonardo was now shaking his head, fixing Raph with a determined look: a challenge almost, like he was daring him not to submit to them.

Raphael growled and gripped on tight, fixing his opponents with a menacing glare, and spun his single sai in a whirling intimidation, unwilling to yield.

"We _will _kill him!" warned the Ninja.

And then the three doormen were there, around him, and he sensed their imminent attack from behind, and quickly launched himself into an all-encompassing roundhouse kick. Suddenly he was fighting a frenzied battle. It was disconcerting, fighting The Foot without masks. He had become so accustomed to not seeing their faces that to be staring into the eyes of his opponents gave him an uneasy feeling. A feeling like this was real, not a dream, the feeling that his victims had identities.

He ran one through with the katana straight away and the sliced body crumpled at his feet, spilling blood freely onto the glossy floor. The work was messy – more of a hack job than the elegance of ninjutsu. So, acknowledging that the katana just wasn't his weapon, no matter how much he'd wanted it as a child, he dropped the sword and drew his twin sai. He fought on for what felt like hours, propelling himself up with his good leg. He should have had the upper hand, too: there were only two of them now and they didn't appear to be armed, but suddenly there was a flush of excruciating pain as his leg gave way, and he caught himself on his hands.

The sai were swept from his grip, and for a moment he pushed himself up and used his fists, but then there was a katana at his own throat, and he stilled instantly, panting.

The two brothers exchanged defeated glances across the room, and to his annoyance, Raphael caught Leonardo's eyes glint with disappointment. Raph gritted his teeth.

"We've been expecting you," offered one of the Ninjas, and Raphael felt the tempting bite of the blade at his throat, slithering so neatly against his skin that he didn't even feel it when it slightly perforated his skin, allowing a small slip of blood to slide down his neck.

"Yeah, and we've been expecting – " Raphael started in retort, but the guy on Leonardo's left grimaced, and uttered some words in Japanese, that Raphael didn't understand.

He understood it though when he felt something smash into the back of his head, and he felt the pain in his beak as he crashed forward onto the ground.

* * *

Donatello blinked in horror as he watched the four remaining security guards escort Leonardo on foot out of the shot. His eyes darted around the other monitors for an indication of where they were taking him. But they didn't appear on any of the other screens.

He thought Raphael was dead. They left him lying on the ground next to the corpse of the man he killed, and for that earth-shattering moment Donatello felt his eyes fill with easy, hopeless tears.

But then the four men reappeared and two of them lifted Raph and carried him out of view.

A few minutes later, the four returned and gathered around the corpse.

And then it dawned on Donatello, quickly, like a cold reality dawning suddenly. They would now be looking for him.


	7. Chapter 6 Supply and Demand

**Chapter 6**

There was an odd sense of reassurance once he entered the subterranean part of the building: like a poignant tug in his gut: it reminded him of home. Leonardo's heart was racing as he was led down a series of stone stairs, his feet shrinking against the sudden touch of cold concrete, and into one of the basement rooms, but he kept his breathing calm, and managed to procure a sense of dignity. If he was being led to meet his death, he would face it head on and with pride. With honour.

_Die tonight. _

By the time the heavy metal door had been reached, his mind had already raced through several potential escape opportunities, and he was confident that he could have easily felled his captors by this time, were it not for one factor: Mikey.

Wherever he was being taken, down this pit, into the bowels of the financial district, he knew that Mikey was waiting for him, and the opportunity for escape would never override the recovery of his lost brother in the importance stakes.

He had been a fool to get caught, really: a fool not to have realised that having already captured Mikey, The Foot would be waiting for a rescuer. He had found Mikey's headset in the shaft not far from the cafeteria, and had tucked it into his belt. A few more yards of scrambling had him face to face with two grinning security guards, and tucked in the cramped space of the ventilation system, with his body folded over itself and his heavy and now cumbersome carapace complicating the equation, he had very little option but to comply when they hauled him out into the wide expanse of hallway.

The door opened with a horrible, morbid creak, groaning reluctantly on rusted hinges.

He saw Michelangelo straight away. His youngest brother was curled in the corner of the cold, dark, pokey room, pulling his limbs as far into his shell as he could manage. Alive. Moving and alive, and giving small moans and gasps.

The security guards pushed him into the room, and closed the door. Instantly, he was aware of the sudden drop of temperature and his skin threw itself into a shudder.

"Mikey!" he called out, and hurried over. He fell to a squat by his brother and lay his hands on his arms. Michelangelo's body was quivering all over and his teeth rattled as he fixed Leonardo with a potent and worried stare.

"Leo? That you?"

"Mikey! Yes, it's me. How long have you been here?"

"I don't know," Mikey shivered. "Days? Weeks? I've been dreaming about pizza! Leo! Why… is it… so… cold?"

Leo felt his own body begin to convulse in the diminutive temperature. "It's… I don't know… it's like air conditioning or something! Come on, get out of your shell, we need to keep moving to generate some warmth."

That was when they flung Raphael in, and he lay still where he fell.

Michelangelo eased his retracting limbs out of himself and stood up slowly, apparently too disorientated to notice the arrival of the third brother. His eyes stayed on Leo, and he blinked plaintively at him from under lethargic lids. He looked sleepy, and dopey… and… childlike.

"Listen, Mikey, I know you're sleepy, but I need you to stand on the spot, and jump up and down, OK?"

Mikey nodded unsurely. He let his knees bounce for a moment, and then he stopped – and Leonardo recognised his little brother, as he had looked at him as a child, eyes wide, apprehensive, and begging for encouragement.

And Leo felt his heart break a little inside him. Michelangelo was so close to deep sleep that he had slipped into a drowsy, almost infantile state. Leonardo bounced himself. "Come on, Mikey… like this. It will help wake you up."

So, while Michelangelo hopped up and down on the spot, Leonardo crawled over to his incapacitated brother and rolled him over. A tiny smear of blood glistened on his throat, and blood was really starting to run rivulets from the gash on his leg, in which the shuriken was still lodged. Leonardo touched it gingerly and Raphael jerked and moaned, despite being unconscious.

Hoping the pain would bring him around, Leonardo poked at the wound again. "Raph, come on, bro, open your eyes," he whispered softly.

Raphael's eyes remained closed, but he took a shuddering breath, and winced. He swallowed hard and then answered: "What's with the sub-zero temperatures?"

"You OK, bro?"

Raphael's eyelids lifted for a moment and he stared straight into Leonardo's. "Did you find Mikey?" he whispered huskily.

"Yeah, he's right here," Leonardo replied, trying to disguise the shivers creeping into his voice.

Raph shut his eyes and groaned.

Aided by the movement, it was only then that Michelangelo appeared to become more alert, and aware of what was happening in the cell. He stopped hopping and came over to where Leonardo was squatted.

"Raph!" he said with a small, ironic grin. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Leo happened!" Raphael growled furiously. "Leo had to go get himself caught, that's what!"

"Hey, you didn't have to play hero and aggravate them!"

Raph pushed himself up. "Anyways, why the fuck did you tell them I was in the foyer?!"

Leonardo nodded his head as he felt the weight of responsibility heavy on his back. "I'm sorry, Raph, but I heard Donnie's transmission. We needed to steer them away from Don, so we could give him some more time to work. He knows what's going on here, and we don't."

"Great! Turned me in, still! Some leader!"

"I did what I had to do. Now, hang on!" Leo dug into his belt and pulled out Mikey's headset.

"You found it then," Mikey grinned.

Leo nodded, and put it on. "Donnie!" he hissed into the mouthpiece.

Mikey looked at Raph. "I dropped it in the shaft, so you guys would find me," he said proudly. Raph closed his eyes.

"Donnie, can you hear me?"

"Leo?" a startled, crackly reply.

"Don! Yes it's me! Listen, where are you?"

"I'm in the ceiling! I saw what happened on the CCTV. Are you alright? Where are you?"

"We need your help fast, Donnie. I'm here with Mikey and Raph. They took us down to the basement. We're in this tiny room, but they are pumping cold air in and it's freezing. Mikey was almost unconscious when we got here, and he can't have been here for more than – what? Two hours?"

"Freezing? Shit, Leo!"

"Don't panic. Just tell me what we can do to keep warm?"

"There's nothing you can do!" Donatello's voice sounded exasperated and stressed. "You're reptiles. Cold blooded. You need to… you need to try and maintain your body temperature. Try not to lose heat. Just keep moving, huddle up to each other and I'll get there as quick as I can."

"One other thing, Don."

"What?!"

"Raph's injured. He's taken a shuriken in the leg, and he's turning a yellowy-grey colour. What do I do?"

Raph blinked, and looked down at his leg. Leo noted that already Raphael's eyes were beginning to glaze over with the seductive pull of sleep.

There was an uncomfortable pause, and Leo waited patiently.

"OK, Leo, look at the wound. How bad is it?"

Leo helped Raph lean back against the wall and stretched his leg out on the ground in front of him. Raph grimaced, but did not complain.

The star was implanted in Raphael's leg, so that only half of it protruded. The flesh around it was torn and ugly, bleeding and swelling.

"It's bad, Donnie," Leo said softly. "It's only half visible. Shall I pull it out?"

"No! You lunatic! It's a Shuriken, Leo! That cold temperature is making you dozy! It'll do more damage coming out. Just leave it, and I'll have to take it out when we get home. Be grateful for small favours though – if the temperature is as low as you say it is, it should stop infection developing."

"OK, Donnie. Just get here quick."

"I'm on it."

And the line crackled into silence.

Leonardo shivered, and held his breath for a moment. The words touched his mind again: _Die tonight_. He bit back the surge of panic which was beginning to rise in his belly. Don was right: already the cold was affecting his mental processing.

Mikey started hopping again.

Leo sat next to Raph. "You think you can move?"

Raphael looked away, clearly embarrassed. "Pain's bad," he admitted, and the reluctance was ripe in his voice. "Don't think I can stand."

"OK, don't worry bro. Don's coming to get us. I'm going to try and keep you warm, OK?"

He drew Raphael's body into his own, in an awkward embrace. "We have to share whatever is left of our body heat. Mikey and I will take turns."

Raphael stiffened uncomfortably, but allowed himself to be held.

In the corner, Mikey started hopping faster, and Leonardo pretended not to notice when he lost his balance and had to catch himself before he fell.

The cold was unbearable. Their bodies just weren't built to stand it. It was like pain. Like a relentless agony screaming through his body. He swallowed hard, around a dry, grating throat and urged Donatello to hurry in silent thought. He could hear the unsteady rhythm of Mikey trying to maintain his hopping, and he could feel Raphael's body slackening against him as he succumbed to the deadly combination of cold and blood-loss.

Leo hugged Raph tightly, and he felt his mind touching on questions which he wasn't really consciously ready to address: why had The Foot not just killed them? Why were they forcing them into a docile, sleepy state?

* * *

Supply and demand.

As he secreted himself into a small alcove in the wall panelling, Donatello rolled the words over in his mind again. Supply and demand.

The prices of shares rise and fall on a daily basis. Their price is dictated by supply and demand: when there are more shares on the market than are required, the value of the share decreases; when there is high requirement for a certain share, and not enough stock to go round, the value of that share increases.

The trick to trading on the stockmarket is buying when the price is low, and selling when the price is high. As such, demand for low priced shares goes up, raising their value. _It's all about Net Asset Value_, Donatello thought. _What is the actual cost to the investor?_

And where is the value measured? Where is it susceptible to the effects of supply and demand? The answer: The New York Stock Exchange.

One thing was clear: The Shredder had gained a lot of wealth, and through it, a lot of power.

He'd found a way to control the prices of stocks, and trade them to his advantage.

Donatello had seen the CCTV tapes. Traders entering the building in the morning, and reappearing as maintenance men in the evening.

The same people.

The Shredder's empire had quite literally taken over the Stock Exchange. His men were on the trading floor, driving up the price of his stocks.

And The Shredder had unleashed his riches onto the city, and was paying off crime organisations and individuals as he went.

And he was showing no signs of relaxing. Whatever his plan was, it hadn't yet culminated. Hadn't reached the climax.

That was where the turtles came in. Supply and demand. The Shredder had something the turtles wanted, and the stock was going up. And more worryingly to Donatello, the turtles had something The Shredder wanted, and he wondered how much their stock was worth to The Foot.

A chill scuttled up his spine as he began to inch his way through the narrow space between the plasterboard and the heavy brick wall. His shell scraped against the brickwork, making a coarse, dragging sound which sounded unnaturally loud in his ears.

The Foot had been doing their research, and had quite astutely used the turtles' inherent weakness against them. When they mutated, the turtles had acquired traits which put them at an advantage over other reptiles, traits which were shared by their warm-blooded human counterparts which assisted them in the regulation of their body temperature: sweat glands, for example. But there was no escaping the fact that, as human as they may have become, the turtles were at their very essence, cold-blooded reptiles who simply could not function in freezing temperatures. By confining them to a room without warmth, The Foot would quickly succeed in making them sluggish and unco-ordinated, and next to useless in battle. By reducing the temperature enough they could quite easily drive the turtles into hibernation-like comas. By subjecting them to further significantly reduced temperatures, the turtles' bodies would quite simply fail, and his brothers would die.

Donatello didn't know what temperature his three brothers were currently suffering, but if two hours had taken Mikey to lose consciousness, then it didn't sound promising. He knew that he would just have to get to them as quickly as possible. He didn't even want to think about Raph and the consequences of being injured. His brother had taken some bad hits in his time, but even the toughest soldier could go into shock in the grip of a bad wound, and if that happened he would have to be kept warm.

Again, the question really came down to the stockmarket: supply and demand. Where The Foot keeping his brothers alive, perhaps to bargain with, perhaps to bait _him _with? Or were they lulling them into a docile and harmless state to simply make it easier to kill them? It all depended on their value, like equities: supply and demand.

As he inched through the walls to the nearest route to the basement, Donatello berated himself: why did he always have to be right?


	8. Chapter 7 A Practice to Abandon

**Chapter 7**

For years, winters were a problem.

Leonardo knew that nineteen years ago Splinter had known very little about the rearing of cold-blooded creatures and for the first couple of years down in the sewers, during the cruel winters he had allowed his four infant sons to hibernate. They suffered terribly in the cold, and became tired and ill. Perplexed by the behaviour, Splinter found that by wrapping his sons in blankets, they would huddle into themselves and slowly revive.

But then there was a blistering summer, and once again, the four turtles became sluggish and inactive. Then one year, when he was six, Michelangelo contracted an infection and a raging fever riddled his small body. His body temperature sky-rocketed, way beyond what Splinter deemed to be normal for a fever, until he filled the bath tub with cold water and submerged his sick son into it. It was at that point that the befuddled rat had turned to books.

He learned then that his sons were not able to regulate their own body temperature in the same way that he was, and relied on external temperatures to keep them functioning optimally. The human characteristics that his sons had evolved appeared to help most of the time, serving as aides to thermal regulation. They could sweat, and shiver, and when they fell ill their bodies were just as likely to become ravaged by fever as his own mammalian body. They operated well in most temperatures, but still, extremities in the environment rendered them sleepy and listless.

Leonardo had memories of Splinter wrapping the four turtles in thick blankets to keep them conscious during a particularly brutal winter. Small heaters began to appear around the lair, as their father continued to do what he could within his capabilities to keep his sons warm when it was too cold, and cool when it was too hot.

For years it was a problem.

Then, at the mature age of eight years old, Donatello, whose mind had long shown the tendency to delve deep into the world of science, technology and mechanics, rigged the lair up with a special heating system, which kept the temperature regulated and constant, all year round, enabling the turtles twelve months of consciousness. He had smiled sheepishly as he presented his invention to his family: embarrassed by the enormous and well-deserved acclaim it won him.

As they grew older, and their bodies stronger, the turtles learned to adapt to the changes in temperature, to tolerate the discomfort, to survive as long as they could. One winter, in the wake of a bitter argument with Leonardo, Raphael stayed out all night in snowfall and returned home in the morning suffering from a slightly alarming stupor, accompanied by a strange and delirious blabber of meaningless conversation. He had slept for a few hours, but had recovered quickly and without adverse effects. It was one of the traits the turtles' bodies had acquired: adaptability and it had served them well over the years.

But now, as he dipped in and out of consciousness, Leonardo found himself remembering his father's anxious words, instructing the strict retention of blankets during the cold winter months, in the days before he was eight years old and he had come to take steady temperature for granted.

Leonardo opened his eyes. His body was cold. So cold. He couldn't feel his limbs. He was surfing between the realms of sleep and waking. He didn't even have the energy to shiver anymore. His head hurt. He felt depersonalised, like he wasn't really himself anymore. Distant.

A few steps away from him, Mikey was curled in the corner. Obviously the effort to continue hopping up and down had become too strenuous. Mikey's breath was rattling out of him as he too rode the waves of early-stage sleep.

"Mikey," Leo muttered.

"What?" Mikey mumbled with petulance rich in his voice, opening one dreary eye.

"We have to wake up, Mikey," Leo mumbled, but already he was rolling into another delirium of dream images.

"Can't… Leo. So cold. So tired."

"We have to huddle together… keep warm."

Then Leo remembered: Raph.

He pried open his eyes, which had closed involuntarily and scanned the darkness for his brother.

Raph had fallen out of his grasp, and was slumped on his side nearby. His teeth were gritted, and his eyes screwed shut, and a terrible shiver was vibrating his body.

"Raphael?" Leo tried to move, to reach him, to put his arms around his wounded brother again, but movement came with difficultly: his limbs and mind were sluggish, and sleep was beckoning.

But he persisted, and crawled a couple of inches to his brother. He put his arms around him and lifted him up towards him. Raph's hands started grasping at him, gripping onto his shoulders, but he didn't open his eyes. Leo could hear Raphael's breath, trembling and uneasy.

"Raph, can you hear me?"

Raph nodded.

Leo couldn't think of what to say next. He held his brother tightly and they remained silent.

* * *

_We're doing this for the city_! Donatello thought to himself as he dropped the last few feet down the elevator shaft. He landed stealthily on the roof of the elevator and there was an unpleasant clang of metal as he landed, like the surface was flexing under his weight.

Sometimes Donatello despaired. A city which knew nothing of his existence, and yet he fought so hard, and sacrificed so much to protect it.

He grasped his bo staff and used it to remove the panel on the top of the elevator. He heaved it to one side, and then slipped quietly down into the car.

But the city would have to wait. He had to get to his ailing brothers. And he couldn't save the city on his own. He scanned the floor levels.

Dammit. The elevator would only go down as far as the ground floor. He would have to get out in the open to get to the basement.

The elevator opened in the foyer, and knowing that there was a steady flow of people threading into the building through that path, Donatello quickly flipped himself into a nearby office.

Fortunately, the room was empty.

He sheathed his bo, and scanned the wall quickly for an air vent. All he needed was a way into the shaft down to the basement.

The room was apparently the back of the building's Reception. There was a coffee machine and rows of computers and a closet.

Quickly, he identified a vent that would be large enough for him to crawl into. He ran over. The vent itself was coated in a time-abused blanket of thick, mouldy fluff, and the grill just wouldn't budge.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a screwdriver. Calm as he maintained, his palms were beginning to moisten with an anxious sweat, and for a moment he grappled with the tool.

_You're a Ninja, Genius! _he hissed at himself in his mind. _Pull it together!_

He took a breath, grasped the screwdriver, and centred himself, and finally brought it up to the grill. He worked on it for a few minutes, and eventually the grill came loose with a sulky thud, loud and hollow, echoing through the room, and resonating into the halls.

Donatello froze.

His breath was in his throat, his heart pounding. He turned slowly, and as a familiar coldness crept into the air around him, his practiced hand reached for his bo.

And sure enough, like a sixth sense had told him, the room was full of Foot Ninja. This time they were clad in their usual garb, and poised, weapons aloft.

"Oh man!" Donatello said aloud. "Can't you guys leave a turtle to work for five minutes?"

And then the attack came.

There were about fifteen of them, and Donatello repelled each attack, spinning his bo, striking it forward with his front hand, and sweeping the feet from under his opponents.

He quickly felled three of them, and secured the deal with hard kicks to their skulls.

He was beginning to think that he would succeed quickly, when a tanto sliced into his arm, and he reeled back, surprised by the sudden pain. But he gritted his teeth and fought on, for his brothers who needed him.

Quickly it was apparent that he had to work on defence. There were too many to be thinking about attacking. He managed to disarm a katana-wielding ninja using a new technique he had been practicing with Leo. _The Foot are growing accustomed to our fighting style, _he observed as he fought. _The use of a new move has taken them by surprise. _

He leapt up on the spot, letting his bo fly out, spinning it as he went in both hands, and in doing so formed a shield of movement, a fierce barricade. He had to give himself time to think.

But all he could really focus on was how annoying it was that he was always right.

* * *

Raphael jarred awake with a gasp as a bolt of pain shot through his leg, and flashes of white clouded his vision.

He was cold. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. He was shaking uncontrollably. He felt weak and useless.

His vision seemed to clear for a moment, and be became aware that he was lying against Leonardo, with his head against his plastron. He was clinging onto the ridges of his big brother's shell like a needy infant. At the very concept he felt a surge of anger: he wanted to pull away, to be strong, to be independent, but he couldn't muster the strength to move.

Leo was unconscious. Raphael tried to speak, tried to shake Leo, tried to bring him around, but it was futile.

The pain in his leg was torture, like someone was driving a manual drill into his thigh and spinning it slowly and clumsily through his flesh and muscle. He had taken worse injuries before, so theoretically he should have been able to cope, but the freezing temperature seemed to have stripped away his courage, his ability to endure pain. He felt fragile.

He couldn't see Michelangelo, but he knew without having to call out to him that his younger brother was unconscious too. He had been in this pit for the longest.

There was no heat coming from Leonardo's body anymore, and Leo's arms had fallen away from him, so that he was no longer enveloped in his grasp. But Raphael continued to cling to his brother.

The cold was pain in itself. Breathing hurt. Everything fucking hurt.

Time, too, had abandoned him. He had no idea how long he'd been in the small, refrigerated room. He could feel himself losing consciousness, slipping in and out of dreams and darkness.

He heard himself gasp again, hoarse and raspy, like a last fighting attempt to breathe, though every muscle in his chest seemed to have become frozen solid and unmoveable.

_Oh fuck, _his mind whispered tauntingly. _Look at you. You're dying. You're all dying. And you can't lift a finger to save yourself, or your brothers._

He felt his fingers tighten on Leo's shell, and a small voice broke from his throat, a voice that sounded alien, nothing like his own, more like a whimper, broken with shivers:

"Leo…"

* * *

In the blur of battle, Don felt his bo connect with the skull of a Foot Ninja, and the man crumpled at his feet with a grunt.

Menacing for a moment, Donatello growled.

He felt a hot pain slicing into his bicep, and a momentary glance allowed him to register that he had been softly sliced with a blade of some description, the small would teetered for a moment, and then blood started to push out of it, bubbling at the break in the skin. But there wasn't time to feel the pain, to even acknowledge the injury. The attacks were not subsiding, and he hadn't knocked out enough of them to sufficiently reduce their numbers.

He leapt into the air and with a rumbling scream, came down with a vicious kick on the most likely suspect of the inflicted injury – a ninja wielding a twin ninjaken. As the ninja flew backwards, Don caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the blade of one of his victim's swords, a horrible image of angry violence, and he felt a disagreeing combination of shame and fury battling inside him.

And then another ninja leapt back at him, his foot impacting into Don's plastron, and Don heard the horrible sound of his shell slamming against the concrete wall. A wave of dizziness reared up as the back of his head thudded against the wall, too, and taunting words touched his mind: _Shit, they are going to defeat me._

He struggled up to his feet, blinking to reorientate himself.

The Foot knew him; had been fighting with him and his brothers for years. Even _he_ was able to recognise individuals within the clan, despite the lack of identities afforded by the masks. He knew them by their fighting style, their movement, their build. And these guys weren't idiots, no matter how much lower than his their IQs might be. If they had any skill at all, then they would be mapping out his movement as they fought, anticipating his next moves.

They had been fighting him for enough long years to recognise that he was reluctant to kill, the nervous possessor of slightly sloppy footwork, the most likely turtle to lose his balance, and not as quick to react as his more battle-hungry brothers. His movement was graceful, well calculated, and efficient, but not thriving with natural talent like his youngest brother, Mikey; nor fuelled by the infinite determination of his older brother, Leo; and neither was it punctuated by the raw aggression of his younger brother, Raph. There were no two ways about it: he lacked blood-thirst. It was apparent.

He knew his bo like part of his body, the texture of the wood, the power in the craftsmanship. His bo, the staff he had carried – and loved – since he was twelve years old. Lethal, but not threatening. It was almost a security blanket: he never fought without it. And it was this concept which preoccupied his mind as he whirred it around, disarming his opponents.

The turtles loved their weapons and knew them intimately, but Don had always been struck by a story Raphael had told him of one of his early lone encounters with The Foot. One of the ninjas had disarmed him, and thrown his sai over the edge of the building. Unfazed by this, in his usual resourceful manner, Raphael had simply taken to using his fists. When he had first heard the story, Don had been shocked and the very idea of being robbed of his precious weapon sent a frenzy of anxiety through his vertebrae.

But now…. Now it kind of made sense.

With his opponents seeming to predict his every move and block accordingly, Donatello took a breath, bared his teeth and sent his bo staff flying forward. Instantly it knocked out three ninja as it sailed into their heads. He bared his teeth, let loose a ferocious war cry and fisted his hands.

And behind the gauze of the Foot masks, Don thought he caught a glimpse of surprised eyes blinking. And he could have sworn that there was a moment where The Foot hesitated.

But as the ninja assault continued, Donatello gathered his determination, abandoned practice, drew on every strength he possessed, and fought with his fists.


	9. Chapter 8 Rebirth

**Chapter 8**

The feeling of flesh subsiding under Donatello's knuckles was a new and frighteningly exhilarating experience, like tenderising raw meat. He could feel cheek bones splintering under his poundings and – somewhat unnervingly for Donatello's pacifistic tendencies – was close enough for his nostrils to take in the rich and pungent reek of sweat as the bodies complied to his manipulations, and fell one by one to the floor.

Adrenaline was surging manically, and his heart was thumping so hard that he could feel its reverberations in his gut. This new, hard and fast battle technique, made all the more real by the spluttering cries and howls of agony from those who collapsed, bruised and sullied, at Don's feet, felt so new and unnatural, that it was reeling him into the dangerous zone of accomplishment and enjoyment, a mockery of the pacifistic voice which still screamed in his head in horrified protest at the pure pleasure he was deriving from the experience.

_This must be how Raph feels in battle, _Don thought, his mind allowing him a brief moment for cohesive thought as his fist slammed into the jaw of one of his remaining opponents, and he felt it crunch with a satisfying pop against his knuckle. _Being up close, close enough to see the glimmer of their eyes through the wire mesh of their masks, to smell their odour, to feel the rupture of bone and the snapping of tendons, to hear their pitiful cries as they accepted defeat. This is Raphael's way: the way of a damaged soul. _

As he sent his foot flying into the final ninja's gut, and watched him buckle with a grunt, his train of thought parted long enough for him to remember why he was doing this. Raph. Leo and Mike. In the cold. Needing rescue.

He didn't think he had killed any of them. Maybe one or two unintentionally. The ninjas lay on the ground, some out cold, some groaning in pain or sheer humiliation at this startling and unpredicted defeat.

Don retrieved his bo, picking his way through the sea of moaning bodies. He spun the bo once. "Always expect the unexpected," he said with a grin, which he was uncomfortably aware of touching his lips.

He hefted his bag back over his shoulder, sheathed the staff and pried the grate from the ventilation shaft, and wriggled in.

Grateful for knee and elbow pads, he shuffled through the narrow passages, pulling himself along with the sluggish momentum of the adrenaline-fuelled tortoise racing the overly cocky hare. His whole body was quivering with clumsy energy.

Finding a way down, he pressed his hands against the walls, and slowly lowered himself through the duct, feeling his way in the darkness, twisting his body and rotating awkwardly like the unwilling infant participant of a breach birth. Feet and hands securing himself to the shaft walls, he descended carefully, until he established a rhythm, at which point he quickened his pace. He smiled grimly to himself, aware of the ironic symbolism of this uterine descent. Rebirth. _It's all about the rebirth._

It was this thought dominating his mind when his feet hit tubular aluminium, and he found his path obstructed by the humming machinery of an air conditioning shaft.

_Ha! _he thought with a triumphant grin. _Gotcha!_

But despite his shaky victory, Don knew he needed his wits. As he manoeuvred himself around the intruding duct, he managed to disengage one of his hands, sufficiently to allow it to dip into his bag and trace the curve of a small explosive device. He would have to find somewhere in the building where he could take his brothers. Somewhere warm, somewhere safe before they continued their mission. The Shredder had not yet made an appearance, and Don knew it was only a matter of time before he reared his ugly head. And when he did, Don would need his brothers. He wouldn't be able to face The Shredder alone, not when he had an entire city at his command.

* * *

Somewhere far away, in dreams that had become predominantly occupied by an empty throbbing darkness, Michelangelo heard a bang.

It was in the distance, of no concern to him. But it had torn him from a rather comfortable oblivion that he had encased himself in, and irritation prickled his nerves.

And in the explosion's aftermath, as the pulsating ring of sound and movement, which now somehow seemed somewhat – and annoyingly – closer, he attempted to return to his hole, to rest, to sleep where there were no more dreams.

But then there was more sound: infuriatingly near and intrusive… and _unwanted. _An alien noise with strange intonations. Not an explosion. Softer, melodic, urgent perhaps. Not unpleasant.

"Mikey?"

Familiarity touched his mind. _Mikey. That's me. _

Compelled to identify the sound, he reluctantly cracked open an eyelid, and instantly pain returned, unspeakable, intolerable, pain which was torture, a torture that had already defeated him. Tears sprung into his eyes in reaction, but he was paralysed. Couldn't move.

But vision returned, albeit in an abstract puzzle of fragmented images: A blur of green and a flash of purple. Don.

"Mikey. Come on Mikey."

Don slapped him, and part of Mike's mind identified that the slap should have hurt. But it didn't. He couldn't feel his face. Darkness was calling him back. Safety. Home.

"Come on Mikey, let's get you out of here."

And then Mike fled into darkness, where there was no more pain, just a black empty silence.


	10. Chapter 9 A Display of Talent

**Chapter 9**

Though it was dark, the air was clear, not misted by the suffocating fog of central heating, neither the artificial crispness of central air conditioning. Just pure. Just organic.

Just raw.

He liked it that way.

He breathed deep as he placed his shoes, their highly polished shines reflecting the small fraction of remaining light that even his eyes could not detect, into their slot in the wardrobe. Even in the darkness, he caught a glimpse of his reflection, and the light, satisfied smile tilting his lips at the corner, as he surveyed the sea of glistening shoes visible in the meagre light.

Perfect. Everything in place.

More than perfect: impeccable.

And with the same precision, with the same dedicated movement he had used to undress, too particular to have been marred by practice or complacency, he slipped into his kimono, securing the binding securely, pausing to briefly trace a light finger over the intricacy of the delicate embroidery of the fabric.

In the darkness, he remained still. He breathed, deeply into the nothingness of the room. Closed his eyes, exploring the spatial complexity of the room with his inner eye.

And then he launched himself, into a whirlwind of complex katas, skewering forward, spinning in the air, in attack mode and the rush of adrenaline spiked his nerve endings, raw and exquisite, and he roared in the vibrant ecstasy of his power. Hurled his body from side to side, lunging and lashing out at invisible enemies, felling them, one by one, mercilessly. With his eyes still closed, he moved with such speed that he felt the still air rush against his skin, felt his hair flap playfully against his forehead, felt each tiny hair follicle on his arms erect the hair with goose-bumps of euphoria. He propelled himself off one wall, spiralling, flipping, kicking, delivering each brutal punch with the elegance and grace of a ballerina.

Her landed softly, dropping his upper body into a formal and respectful bow – a bow to no-one, nothing with more grandeur than the opposite wall.

He straightened, and opened his eyes, focusing, meditating on a small speck of imperfection in the wall paper in front of him.

He wasn't even breathless.

* * *

When Michelangelo opened his eyes, the first thing he was aware of, even before his brain recognised vision again, was the strange tingling sensation spreading creepily over his flesh.

And, oddly, the sound of rain.

He gasped in lethargic surprise.

"Thank God for small favours!" He heard a voice chatting, lightly, bearly audible.

The voice. Comfortingly familiar, but not yet identifiable.

And suddenly, almost as if his senses were flooded with awareness, like they had been delayed by a timer which had just run out, he felt the lap of water in his ears, and the uncomfortable clinging of his bandana, adhering to his face and water-logged.

He was submerged in water.

And not just any water. _Warm _water.

_Where the hell am I_?

"Shhhh!" The voice husked, not far away from him. "You wanna get us caught??"

"Sorry, Don, I just… the change of temperature... _it stings_!" Leo's voice.

Leo and Don. Don was here. And then it was all replaying in Mike's mind, the cold, the terrible, terrible cold, and his body numbing over and driving him deeper into the realms of sleep.

It was only when he heard the violent slosh of water splashing around that he became aware that he had sat bolt upright in a hurry.

And just in time to hear Leo's voice whispering: "Who puts showers in an office block? Humans are so odd."

"Leo!" Mike bellowed, unable to contain the sudden surge of joy which erupted from his gut.

For the first time came clear vision, and he saw his two brothers turn on him urgently with their fingers pressed against their mouths. "SHHH!!" they hissed, both with glaring eyes. Leo was dripping wet, too. It was so good to see them that he felt an ache inside him.

They were in what looked like a gym changing room, with a row of shower cubicles. Mike was sitting up in the basin of one of the cubicles. The drain had been jammed closed and he had been lying on his side in the growing pool of hot water. Of course, the sound of rain wasn't rain at all - merely the water rattlnig out of the shower head and splattering onto his body and the sides of the cubicle.

Don smiled wanly. "You OK, bro? You've been sleeping."

Mike stretched out, and Oh God how his muscles hurt. Every muscle spasmed achingly as he fought to regain control of his body.

"Easy, Mikey," Don whispered. "Just let the hot water warm you up."

But Mike had more urgent considerations. "Where's Raph?"

"I'm right here, asshole!" Raph's voice grunted, but Mike couldn't see him.

He sat up further.

And then he saw his brother. On his shell, and Leo and Don were crouching over him, like young boys examining something peculiar and fascinating.

Raph's hands were clawing against the tiled flooring, like he was trying to find a grip.

"Mikey, you don't have to watch this," Don's voice.

Foolish words. But also the encouragement Mike needed. He pushed himself forward, and crawled out of the shower cubicle to join this brothers on the floor. "Watch what?"

Leo shot him an irritated glance. "You've been conscious for all of thirty seconds and already—"

"Whoa whoa, Leo!" Don scolded softly. "let's focus on the task at hand."

Leo's hands were resting on Raph's ankles, and Don was gingerly letting his fingers hover in the air around the small piece of shuriken which was still visible in Raph's thigh.

Raph's eyes were wild, but held Mike's gaze for a moment. Like himself and Leo, he was dripping wet, but didn't look alert like Leo. His eyes were glossy with a delirious glaze. But he grinned wryly at Mike and said: "You wanna make yourself useful, Motor Mouth?"

Somehow finding the strength to shake off some of the stupor, Mike nodded uncertainly. "Uhh… Sure?" he said, tilting his answer into a question for fear of what 'useful' might entail.

But Don didn't give Raph the opportunity to issue any orders, and for a moment Mike was disappointed, guessing that Raph's instructions may have been more interesting. "Hold his shoulders. Make sure he doesn't buck."

Obediently, Mike shifted around to Raph's head, and planted his hands gently but firmly on his shoulders. He felt Raph squirm against the pressure.

"OK, bro," Don said. "Here goes." He reached into his bag and after a brief fumble pulled out an old-fashioned wooden ruler. Without a word, he pushed it between Raph's teeth, and Raph didn't object, a fact that sent a chill scuttling up Mike's spine. Raph's glassy eyes swung up to him, and Mike was almost positive that he winked, an action which seemed so bizarre and so alien, that in the split second that followed he wondered if it had really happened.

"Kay, bro – deep breath…"

Mike saw Raph's chest jerk as he drew in a ragged breath. His obedience at his brother's commands indicated only one thing: that Raph knew this was serious and Mike didn't like that at all.

Don secured a pair of pliers around the exposed fragment of shuriken and with a sudden and forceful yank, he wrenched the metal from his brother's leg. The flesh in Raph's leg seemed to recoil and it made a strange and sick sound, as the weapon tore through flesh and muscle, disconcertingly like the sound of a kiss.

Raph's eyes squeezed shut and his teeth gritted around the wooden ruler. A strange, hissing growl emanated from his throat and Mike felt his whole body lurch and seize in pain.

And out slipped the shuriken, thick and small and glistening with blood. Rivulets of sanguine blood erupted from the open wound and Leo let go of Raph's ankles to clamp one of Don's sterile cloths over it. The white of the fabric instantly drank up the red, until the cloth was a disturbing melanic shade of burgundy.

Raph shuddered and his chest pounded up and down as he attempted to breathe around clenched teeth.

Mike found that his fingers were softly caressing his brother's collarbones in sympathy.

Don reached out solemnly and removed the ruler from between Raph's teeth, and it came loose accompanied by white foam, which Mike felt oddly fascinated by: his tough, hot-headed brother... foaming at the mouth.

Immediately Don was wrapping bandages around the wound, and Raph lay still, seemingly passed-out, but consciousness betrayed by the small moans which were breaking from his throat.

Don secured the bandages tightly, allowing Leo and Mike a moment to share eye-contact. Leo looked tortured and saddled by a burden. Mike repressed a small smirk at the appearance. Trust Leo to start pointing the blaming finger at himself.

"OK, Raphie, you're all done," Don said softly.

Raph's eyes cracked open, laced with tears, but sharp. "You ever use them things as a weapon, Donnie?" he panted.

Don shrugged, dismissing his brother's attempt at a joke in a dark hour. "Not the way I would have liked to have treated you, but we're a long way from my lab and we've got The Shredder to stop. Here." He dropped the bloodied shuriken into Raph's open palm. "Keep this safe."

Raph peered at him quizzically, but said nothing.

"Don, is he going to be able to walk?" Leo said softly.

Don shrugged again. "Let him rest. We need to come up with a game plan."

"Hell no!" Raph growled. "I ain't missing out on game plans!"

"Raph. I've just pulled a weapon out of your leg that was quite happily burrowing in for keeps. Get some rest. We can't have you succumbing to blood loss as we are ascending up to The Shredder's floor."

It seemed to Mike that Raph was already being beckoned by a sleepy torpor. His weary eyes snapped up to Don. "You know where he is?" he said weakly.

Don grinned at his brother's closing eye-lids. "Oh yeah, didn't I tell you? He's on the top floor. His floor is littered with CCTV cameras. Obviously he is security conscious. He's waiting for us."

* * *

With his work-out complete, Saki moved silently across the carpeted floor, his naked feet nestling into the lusciousness of the thick pile.

Still in the dark, his lips still held the smile as he beheld his armour, encased in the mighty cabinet he had had transported from his previous home.

Time to don the armour. Time to embrace his destiny. Time to meet those turtles in their last hour.

Time to become The Shredder.


	11. Chapter 10 Herd Mentality

**Chapter 10**

Leonardo couldn't help but wonder how Donatello managed to procure, and maintain such an efficient level of professionalism in everything he did.

And how he managed to anticipate every angle. Right now, Leo and Mike were huddled into blankets which Don had conveniently pulled out of his bag. A bit like Mary Poppins really. It's not as if the bag was _big. _It was no larger than a satchel. But still Don managed to cater for every foreseeable need.

When Leo and had mentioned this, Don had waved his hand at him dismissively, and said, his voice indifferent with nonchalance, "I've always carried around blankets. I wouldn't be much use to an injured reptile if I didn't."

Maybe that was why Don was just a continual source of surprise to Leo: he was so modest, so accepting of his role in the brotherhood. Here he was, bustling around his brothers, wrapping Raph's leg and all still with one of the headsets sitting around his neck.

Leo pulled the blanket around his shoulders and crouched on his haunches as he listened to his miraculously intelligent brother explaining his findings.

Mikey was sitting nearby, wearing a puzzled expression as if he didn't really understand the logistics behind the scam.

Raph was still sleeping, shuddering under the blanket.

They were still in the ladies' changing rooms. Leo had learned when he regained consciousness and found himself face down in hot water, that Don had carried them one by one through the ventilation systems into the most discreet changing room. It was on the second floor. Don had told him that the room in which they were being held was – suspiciously – unguarded, and that the air conditioning system had been altered to divert the cold airflow into the room.

Don had found the showers – apparently financiers liked to go to the gym in their lunch hours and then shower at work – and used the hot water to revive his brothers.

He was already feeling the strain of the violent temperature fluctuation, but at least he was conscious… and alive.

"He must have been working on it for years," Donatello was saying. "Decades even! One doesn't just infiltrate the financial capital of the world overnight!"

"So, what's his plan?" Leo asked, distractedly, still feeling the traumatic climate change in his bones.

"I don't know, Leo, but I know it's big. Oroku Saki doesn't go to all this effort just to amass wealth for himself. We know our enemy well enough to know that this is just his starting point. He has used his wealth to buy out the criminal element of Our City. How much do you think that would cost?"

"Man!" Mikey murmured. "How much _does _it cost to control the uncontrollable?"

A rhetorical question, obviously, as Mikey frowned and did not look to his brothers for an answer.

"So he's up there – on the top floor. It looks like he's _living _here."

"But how?"

Don shrugged at Leo's question. There was a moment of silence.

"But how did he…." Mikey started, his voice trailing into nothing.

"Well," Donatello explained, taking the reins as he bandaged Raphael's leg, "the price of equities is extremely volatile, and can be influenced by a number of factors. One important factor is crowd behaviour."

Finishing, he smoothed the bandages out with his broad fingers, and in his sleep, Raphael groaned.

"Kind of like: you sell, I sell?" Leonardo offered unsurely.

"Got it in one, Leo," Don said. "Traders are _human _after all, and heard mentality is a hard force to fight. For example, it's the story of equity crashes everywhere. Let's say for example that you, Mikey and I all own shares in the same company, and Raph here owns shares in a different company…"

"I'd say Raph's stock is somewhat compromised right now…" Michelangelo giggled.

Donatello glared at him. "Trying to illustrate a point here, Mikey."

Mike held up his hands.

"Let's say that our company has hit rock bottom, and Raph's company is doing really well and the share price is soaring. In theory, the way to out-wit the market is for him to sell his shares when his company's stock is up. Then he could use the proceeds to buy shares in our company whilst the price is low and wait for the price to rise as the company recovers. Outcome: buy low sell high – we all make a killing.

"But what we see more frequently is this: Raph's company is doing really well, and he is not sure he should sell his stock whilst it is doing so well – it might do even better. Meanwhile, Mikey, you are beginning to feel uncomfortable about how badly your stock is doing. You sell your stock, unwilling to lose any more money, leaving only Leo and me. Seeing that you've pulled out, Leo wonders if he should do the same. The more people sell, the lower the demand for the shares, and the price falls. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. I then panic cos I'm in a losing stream, and sell my shares. We look for alternative investments and see that Raph's company is doing really well and we thing it would be a good vehicle to be in. We all invest, driving the price up higher as demand increases. Then, due to some external influence, the stock crashes. Outcome: sell low and buy high and sell low – we all lose money.

"This kind of herd mentality is common. People are drawn to strong investments, when what they should be investing is _recovering _investments. But because equity prices are so volatile and so susceptible to this kind of manipulation, they are vulnerable. It's what we see in recessionary climates. Recession is on the cards so people stop spending money, and as a result the economy slows down even more. What the economy really needs in the face of a recession is a good injection of consumer spending. But consumers stop spending because they can no longer afford the goods and the prices of goods and services continues to rise in order to pay for themselves." He sighed frustratedly, seeing perplexed looks crawling onto the faces of his brothers. "What I'm saying is that it's the _consumers_ that drive up the prices of goods and services. Just as it is the _traders_ who drive up the prices of equities."

"So… what you're saying is…" Mike started, but then paused, confusion etching a furrow between his eyes. "What are you saying?"

Donatello clicked his tongue impatiently. "I'm saying that Saki is using herd mentality to his advantage. Who knows how many traders he has working for him, but it's enough to manipulate the crowd behaviour into selling the shares that Saki wants sold, and buying the shares that he wants bought. The Shredder is using traders to drive up the prices of his own stocks."

"So, in short he's playing the stock market to accumulate wealth – and with it, power," Leonardo interjected.

"Correct," Don replied with a broad grin.

"Dude! Why didn't you just say so instead of inundating us with all of that…"

"Quit it, Mikey!" Leo said, his brows drawing together in concentration. "You say he's up on the top floor. We have to get up there."

"Whoa, whoa," Mike muttered. "Are we talking a stand off here? Because – and I mean this with all respect to our noble rescuer, Donnie – we are in no condition to fight. Look at us."

He thrust a thick thumb towards Leo, who had to nod and acknowledge that despite the mild recovery, he was still trembling, and his whole body remained lethargised by a numbing weakness.

"And to top it all off, Raph's leg is in shreds!" Mikey continued, despair glinting in his blue eyes. "The only turtle here who's any good is Donnie, and let's face it, no offence bro, but you ain't exactly the sharpest knife in the rack when it comes to battle."

Leonardo was surprised to see a slight knowing smile flicker over Donatello's sombre expression, and immediately the question rose in his gut, but before he could ask his brother what had happened while they had been in captivity, Don was replying:

"Maybe so, but I _am _the sharpest knife in the rack when it comes to smarts, and that counts for a great deal in this kind of situation."

Mike looked annoyed. "I hope you are not suggesting that we get on the trading floor to counter Shred-head's evil schemes."

"Of course not, but we're going to need to use our wits. You are right. You three are not going to be very effective fighters." He looked over at Raphael, who lay trembling under his blanket. "So we are going to have to use what we have. Raph's in shock. We can't go anywhere for a while. So I say we camp out here. None of these goons are going to come traipsing into the Ladies' unless they have reason to believe that we are in here. Thanks to privacy laws there's no CCTV hook up in here. That would just be a law-suit waiting to happen. Effectively, we have until they realise that you guys aren't in the air conditioning chamber any more."

Leonardo nodded, gently trailing a finger across Raphael's brow, and was surprised to feel that it was icy cold. "Maybe then we'll find out why they what they were planning with that approach."

"How long do you think we've got before they start looking for us?" Mikey asked with uncertainty.

Don looked grimly at him, and Leonardo recognised the torment of guilt behind his eyes. "I'd say that we don't have very long," Don replied evenly. "I killed some guys near the lobby, so when they find them, they'll find the basement room empty."

Leonardo looked up, shocked.

He would have pushed Don to expand on his comment, but suddenly Don sat up straight, alert, muscles contracting in his brow and pulling his expression into a firm, worried grimace as he shifted the head set that he had been wearing around his neck into his ear.

And Leo knew instantly what his brother had done. The genius, who prepared for everything had purposefully left a microphone in the freezing basement room so that he could hear when their absence was discovered.

Don's eyes were wide as he listened intently.

And then he lowered the headset back onto his shoulders. "They've found the empty room," he said, matter-of-factly.

"Wha'?" Mikey stumbled, not catching on. "How d'you know?"

"What they say?" Leo asked softly.

"Japanese expletives," Don said. "It's only a matter of time before they find us now."


	12. Chapter 11 The Unwanted Truth

_Uhhh. Hi. There are really no excused for how long it's taken me to update recently. Well there is one excuse: my job. Being a financial adviser in a credit crunch is certainly interesting but outrageously busy. So I'm really sorry and hope to get back into a rhythm where I spare time to write. Thanks for reading and please review. :)_

* * *

**Chapter 11**

Whilst Mike roused Raph and helped him limp into the corner of the one of the shower cubicles, Don and Leo fumbled frantically through Don's bag, searching for anything that might buy them some more time.

"You got any explosives?" Leo asked, making a silent effort to disguise the urgency in his mind. He was still shivering, but the agonising cold and subsequent rush of heat had subsided, paving the way for a far more mellow, yet somehow equally torturous, feeling of cold fear.

Don shook his head. "I used the last of them to blast the lock on that door in the basement."

Leo nodded, a frown carving his face into a contemplative stare. His mind was running crazed cycles, uncharacteristically devoid of his usual calm and order. Perhaps that was a backlash of his cold-blooded body being shot between different extremities of temperature. Or maybe it was the backlash of something else – the endless remnants of a forgotten dream, still whirling inside his subconscious, now untouchable except for the unpredictable murmurs of a chilling voice.

_Die tonight. _

But he focused and drew on his remaining strength to continue addressing the problem. He had to. For his brothers. For the city.

For the place he called home.

"Anything we can use to barricade the door?"

Don looked up. "Ordinarily, I'd say Raph's sai, but we have yet to locate all your weapons."

Leo nodded again. It was time. Time to address what somehow he had known would arise, even before they made the subterranean journey from the lair to the Stock Exchange.

But had he known? Had he really? Could he recall the thoughts flicking through his mind.

_Die tonight. _

Who had that been? Who had told him in the realms of mediation that he and his brothers would die tonight?

The Shredder. Of course.

But… was it? If it was The Shredder, where was the sense of dread and unconfessed fear?

Why had be received the message with gratitude and…

… And love?

With a rush of frustration, he pushed the thoughts away. Time to put the challenge in place. If he hadn't known this was going to happen, then why had he felt like he had been preparing himself all day to have this conversation with his most vulnerable brother, drawing his energy together over a long period of time to say words that he never dreamed he would even contemplate?

"OK," he said softly, dipping his voice into a cool, conspirational whisper that indicated that his words were only for Donatello's ears.

Instantly, detecting that special tone, Mike and Raph looked up and Raph's eyes flashed with annoyance. But Leo had ceased to care long ago about petty antagonisms from the two youngest – the penultimate child in particular. Don was, quite unofficially, but not undeservedly, by rights of both his place in the age rankings of the family and his outstanding intellectual capacity, his second in command.

He trusted Don like no other. He maybe lacked Raph's fierce determination and Mikey's freestyle approach to battle, but if he had to count on one turtle to lead in his absence or to share the burden of his duty, he would count on Donatello.

"I have an idea," he whispered.

Recognising the tone of privacy, Donatello looked up and his eyes widened in an invitation for Leo to elaborate.

"They know we're here. They know we are at a disadvantage. They know one of us is injured. I have an idea about how to use that to our own advantage, but it's dangerous and I'll need you."

Donatello's head bobbed in understanding and his grey eyes fixed Leonardo with a questioning gaze.

Leonardo continued to whisper. "We need a distraction. Raph can barely walk, but between the two of us we could serve as a good distraction, to occupy the men on the ground and steer them away from the top floors. But before we go down that path, I need your professional opinion: is he up to it?"

"Well, that depends," Don answered slowly, his voice hushed, but measured by his usual evenness. "You're not going to expect him to perform split kicks are you?"

"No, but this is Raph we are talking about. If he can, he will. I just need to know that his body's not going to shut down."

Donatello nodded slowly, a familiar expression of realisation crawling into his eyes. "So… you're saying….?"

Leonardo paused, and drew in a sharp breath before speaking. Once the words were uttered, there would be no taking them back, and the judgment required to gauge whether or not it was safe to speak them, whether they would spin an irreparable course of action into place, was strangely absent.

Taking a stab at the risk, he spoke:

"I need you to go up to meet The Shredder in battle. Alone."

There was silence, and despite his whispered words, over in the shower cubicles, Mike and Raph suddenly fell into stunned silence.

Donatello's green eyelids blinked once, but still his stare remained resolute.

"I'll get Mikey to tail you unseen as back-up. I need to know if you can do it."

Don nodded slowly, with uncertainty.

"Can you do it? Please say 'no' now, because we need to look for an alternative. It's for the city, Donnie. For everything we call home."

"Wait! Don – no!" Raph's voice chimed in, broken by shivers.

But he didn't say anything else, and for what felt like hours, the four brothers sat in awkward silence. Mike looked anxious, Raph angry. The two younger brothers looked at each other, exchanging worried expressions. Don, however, appeared eerily calm.

Maybe he had known all along, too.

Eventually, Don's reluctant head nod became more assertive. "I can do it," he said.

* * *

Donatello gave Mike two caffeine pills to kick-start his systems. With Mike only slightly lagging, Don shuffled through the narrow passage, propelling himself forward with his elbows, through the darkness and the metallic glean of the tunnels.

He felt numb. He was certain that somewhere in his bones, the seed of terror was waiting to spring its unwieldy weight onto him. But so far he felt nothing. Mike was panting softly behind him, already feeling the strain.

His mind was oddly clear – and for the first time devoid of the worrisome cycles of 'ologies which often inhabited his unending reveries. He was completely focused. His objective: to get up to The Shredder's domain, and splice his sorry butt for the final time.

No problem. No big deal.

By the time they reached the intersection, and the light through the panel into one of the many hallways, Mike had caught up and his sprightly demeanour was beginning to return. Even before they had clambered into the close air of the ventilation system, Don could see that his colour seemed to be normalising, ripening out of the sickly, pale green of old apples that had terrified him earlier, when he first saw his three brothers in that basement… probably a hell of a lot closer to death than he would ever let them realise. And now, in the whites of Mike's eyes flashed in the darkness, and as Don's torch-light sent shadows rolling across his youngest brother's back, he caught the tiniest glimpse of pupils shrinking in reflex.

He nodded at Mike, and in the dim candescence of the torch light, Mike nodded back.

"Leo, we're here. What's your position?" Don whispered into his headset.

"We made it to the basement undetected."

"Good. How's Raph doing?"

"Once a fighter always a fighter," came Leo's reply, harbouring just a touch of irritation.

Don smiled to himself. "Mike and I will get into position. You've got thirty minutes to find the weapons. Once they're located, you know what to do."

"Yes, brother, I know. Be careful. Any sign that you can't make it, I want you to make a judgement call. If you can't…."

"I got it, Leo." There was a pause, and if Don didn't know that it was impossible, he would have sworn that he heard a smile on Leo's face.

"OK. Over and out."

Don looked at Mike, who was staring right back at him with a saddened grin.

Don ignored it. "Keep heading to the South-West corner. There you'll find a duct which takes you right out into the fire escape. Get up to the top." He handed Mike the torch. "You'll do fine. If you start to feel sleepy, rest for a bit. You have half an hour. Let me know when your there."

Mike sighed and grinned. "My brother, the hero," he said teasingly.

"Aw, cut it out," Don whispered, feeling his heartbeat quicken. "I'll see you later."

Mike stayed and watched while Don slid a small mirror out of the vent. The hall was clear. He rolled onto his haunches and pushed the wall panel out with his feet. He didn't look at Mike as he eased himself out into the screaming fluorescent lighting of the wide hallways. He didn't want Mike to look at him or see his face.

He didn't want his youngest brother to see how frightened he suddenly was.

* * *

Down in the stale cold of the basement, Raphael paused.

Leo, feeling his sudden resistance, stopped walking and waited patiently.

"You OK?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just… gimme a sec." Raph planted a hand against the wall and shifted his weight off his leg.

"You want to sit down?"

"No, I don't wanna sit down, you asshole," Raph growled. "Quit it with the patronising, and let's get a move on." He hobbled a few paces and took Leo's shoulder.

But two steps later and white bolts were flashing across his vision and he knew that he was done. The pain in his leg was abominable. Clinging to his brother for support was humiliating enough, but pain was rocketing through his muscles, and each moment was like daggers in his flesh. Usually he would use the pain, fight through it, but he was already defeated, already useless, already discarded from this game.

"You know what worries me," he said softly, "that New York City's entire ninja population is supposed to be looking for us in this building. So where are they?"

Leo didn't answer, but his face was strewn with worry.

Just as he thought he was getting his rhythm, an unexpected flash of pain ripped through his leg, and Raphael sagged, groaning and cursing.

"You need a break?" Leo asked impatiently.

"Of course not!" he barked, but let go of Leo's arm and staggered to the wall, lowering himself down carefully.

"OK," Leo eventually said. "It's be much quicker if I just go find our weapons alone. They can't be far away. You, just stay put until I get back."

Raphael glared at him and said nothing. He watched Leonardo disappear in a flash of green and blue, ridiculously athletic for someone who had damn near turned to ice mere hours ago.

His leg was throbbing.

He closed his eyes.

Opened them – the pain seemed to have dulled, and Raph wondered with a spike of alarm if he had slipped into an unnoticed sleep. He let his eyes close again, and swung his head against the wall, feeling crumblings of loosened concrete dusting down the back of his neck.

It itched, and he jerked his shoulders in frustration, too tired to lift his arms to scratch the irritation away.

The movement of his shoulders seemed only to liberate more sandy cement and he growled….

_Wait a minute._

…..

He opened his eyes…..

…. Leaned forward and twisted his head around to see the wall behind him.

A silver trail of dust and grit skirted its way down the wall, like a python awaiting the right moment to attack.

Raph's eyes traced it upward, to the ceiling, to the hole that had been drilled into the brickwork…..

….

His lungs and heart clenched into solid, motionless matter. He stopped breathing. He heard the air choke up in his throat as his trachea convulsed in alarm.

Eyes anchored into the mayhem of wires sprouting out of the hole, he scrabbled for his headset.

"Leo….. Leo!" he hissed, words barely audible, even for him.

"What?" came a distant reply, riding through waves of static and distortion.

"Man, get your ass back here!"

"Raph, I…. uhhh….. I can't right now!"

"No, Leo, seriously. We're in big trouble. This whole place is in big trouble…."

"What do you mean?"

"Just get back here, for fuck's sake!"

"I _can't! _I've, er… met with some trouble of my own."

At that, predictably, Don's voice was quick to pipe into the conversation: "Raph, what's going on?"

"Oh shit, Donnie, we're gonna need you down here in the basement."

"Why? What's gotten into you?"

"Donnie," Raph answered, dipping his voice as if attempting to shield his listening brothers from the fact, "the basement is rigged with explosives."


	13. Chapter 12 Deceptions

**Chapter 12**

With his carapace wedged against the concrete walls of a secluded stairwell and his bo aloft in his right hand as he edged up the steps out of the line of sight of the security camera's, Donatello could hear Splinter's voice in his ears, as real and as close as if he were right behind him, labouring his gravelly voice over Don's shoulder.

"Donatello," the voice husked, "you will remain with me for a while."

They were scolding words, uttered in the dojo. The turtles were nine years old and were panting in the aftermath of one of Splinter's lessons. Don was grasping his jo - the smaller sister to the current weapon that he had not yet grown into. At Splinter's words his spine had stiffened with a rush of anxiety. Such words were usually employed to rebuke Raphael or Leonardo in the aftermath of a sparring match turned sour. Donatello preferred to keep quiet during lessons, and obey his Sensei's instructions without argument, to avoid focus where possible. What could he have conceivably done wrong? What could warrant him being kept behind afterwards for stern instruction away from the ears of his brothers?

Raph and Mike were smirking as they bowed and left the dojo, and Leo offered Don an awkward, sympathetic look, which invited a small spike of annoyance to contract in Don's stomach. He remained tall and focused, eyes fixed ahead, and waited.

"Donatello," Splinter said when the dojo was clear, moving into his eye-line, "did you think that you could fool an old rat?"

Don was taken aback. "No, Sensei?" he answered, tilting his answer into a question to demonstrate his confusion.

"My student, you are cheating."

"Sensei?"

"You may think that you are pleasing me by appearing to execute your maneuvers correctly. But, Donatello, what would please me is to see you _actually_ executing your maneuvers correctly. When you are faced with an enemy, I assure you that you will be grateful to have learned to kick correctly."

Donatello's gut was curling around itself. He felt confused and scapegoated. How could he be accused of cheating? He had always taken his Master's lessons seriously.

Splinter's voice softened. "Donatello," he said, "you are leaning on your jo."

"I'm sorry, Sensei, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong," Donatello answered.

"Hand me your weapon."

Don passed his jo to Splinter.

"Now, kin geri!"

Donatello complied, sending his right foot forward in a low kick.

"Mawashi geri!"

Donatello complied again, without hesitation, kicking again, this time sweeping his foot to the side. As he did, Splinter tapped the edge of the jo against his plastron, and Don wobbled mid kick, and stumbled back onto both feet.

He knew instantly that he was kicking wrong. How could he have been kicking wrong all this time? He had believed his kicks to be strong and powerful - or at least enough to scrape through the lessons without criticism.

Splinter appeared to read the look of distress on his face. "My son," he said, "you are not turning your supporting foot."

Don's eyes fell instantly to the floor to appraise his feet.

"Your kicks lack drive and focus because you are not supporting them properly."

"But Sensei I'm sure I do!" Don protested, cheeks burning.

"Donatello, you have been learning on your weapon in order to turn your supporting foot. This will not serve you well if you cannot learn to kick correctly without your jo."

Don stood still, horrified. He had struggled with his supporting feet years ago, and Splinter had encouraged him to practice by using assistive devices to help him balance. And he had never been able to move on from requiring such assistance.

"Donatello, you needn't be hard on yourself. It will come in time. But you must try. I understand that you are nervous of inflicting pain and that you hold back. However, please understand that I teach you to equip you with inner strength and the ability to survive as well as outer strength. If you hold back you will never grow."

"Well, Sensei," Donatello whispered into the sterile stairwell of the New York Stock Exchange, "I think I grew."

He elevated his bo horizontally over his head with one hand, shrank into the wall as much as he could, and pivoted forward. The bo shot through the air in a blur and plummeted into the lens of the security camera that patrolled the upper corner. The lens shattered, sending a tingling of vibration through Donatello's solar plexus. He was only two floors below his target, and he wasn't expecting the next bit to be easy: at least he could procure a small shred of the element of surprise.

With the passages clear, he retrieved his bo and took a deep breath. "Mikey. What's your position."

"On the fire-escape. Two minutes approx to position."

Don felt a faint stab of wry amusement. "You sound serious."

"Messin' with your head, bro."

Don left a trace of a smile touch his lips for a moment. He advanced up the final two steps and stood facing the door that would mark his entrance into The Shredder's twisted and battle-ready domain. Once that door was opened there would be no turning back. Donatello would leave behind the nine year old turtle holding back tears in his father's dojo on this side of the door, the child who was ashamed not to have the natural drive in battle that his brothers did, the child who had come to rely on his weapon to support his techniques.

Donatello sucked in a breath and eased the door open, and stepped over the threshold. As the door closed behind him and he stepped into the darkness, he took a moment to acknowledge and nurse a new grief, a small and perhaps insignificant grief. But to him, in that moment, it felt crucial nonetheless.

As he strode forward he composed himself, brushing the sadness away, the sadness that after today he would no longer recognise that child, the nine year old innocent that he once was.

***

For a full minute, Leonardo was able to relish the rush of movement around him as he ran through the basement. It was enlivening to move again, like the air shooting past him was breathing life back into his fatigued muscles.

A small spark of adrenaline was all he needed to inject some optimism back into his mind. For a full minute Leonardo allowed himself to believe that he would find the weapons quickly and easily. Surely, they couldn't be far away. For a full minute, he allowed himself faith in his second in command, faith that Donatello had what it took to go up against Oroku Saki. For a wonderful sixty seconds, Leonardo's gut was reassuring him that the plan would work.

And then he rounded a corner and found himself face to face with a grinning man in a boiler suit. He couldn't have been older than Leo himself. He was slight, with had a shock of black hair, teased with gel, narrow brazil nut coloured eyes. Skin youthful, peppered with light brown freckles and dimpled cheeks accentuating his broad grin. He was standing casually, wringing an oil-soaked cloth between his fingers.

In the brief moment that he had to appraise the situation, Leonardo, perhaps deceived by the guise of innocence, or still reeling from endorphin laden complacency, dismissed the young man as little threat. He stood still, adopting an offence stance, but wasn't worried.

He wasn't worried at all.

"Aha!" beamed the man. "Mutant turtle! Hello, Mutant Turtle!"

"Er," Leonardo paused, "hello, strange maintenance man."

"Foolish Mutant Turtle," said the man, his grin unrelenting. "I not maintenance man."

Leonardo saw him move, saw bright eyes and the shape of a pale fist in amongst the spinning blur of movement and chaos, but had no idea how he came to be prostrated on his side on the floor. The man had a boot against the bridge of his shell, and Leo's right wrist in his grasp, twisting his arm up at an impossible angle, hand bent back on itself, wedged still by a firm thumb on his crushed knuckles. Damn.

That was when Raph's voice rasped in his ear: "Leo! Leo!"

"What?!" Leo grunted, as his attacker twisted his wrist tighter, sending bolts of pain down his arm and into his shoulder socket, crumpling him into a useless writhing lump of agony, until he was neutralised, lying flat on his belly.

"Man, get your ass back here!" Raph's voice barked, hemmed with something like panic.

"Raph, I err, I can't right now!" Leo muttered, attempting to struggle, hearing a soft snort of gleeful laughter over him.

But Raph didn't seem to take his hint. "No, Leo, seriously!" he protested in a garbling, urgent voice. "We're in big trouble. This whole place is in big trouble!"

Leo grunted. "What do you mean?"

The panic seemed to have evaporated from Raph's voice, leaving vicious anger: "Just get back here for fuck's sake."

"I can't!" Leo hissed as the man, still grinning and still with Leo's crippled hand firmly in his own, moved into his view. "I've... err... met with some trouble of my own."

"Still chatting, Mutant Turtle? Very bad. Very bad, Mutant Turtle."

A flash of pale flesh and ridged knuckles was all Leo had time to see before the darkness caved in.

***

He woke to find himself sitting upright, knees folded in the lotus position.

He lifted a hand to his beak, expecting to feel the recoil of sore, wounded flesh at his touch. But his hand smoothed over his face without pain.

He was in a darkened room, and the small glimmering flame of a candle threw harmless shadows across the walls.

The room smelled smokey, of vanilla incense and lotus blossoms.

Where the bloody hell was he?

He looked around, intending to stand up, but found that his legs were locked in position.

He cleared his throat with uncertainty.

"Leonardo, you have woken."

His eyes widened. He had not been aware of the presence of another in the room. Searchingly, he scanned the shadows, eyes eventually falling on the soft features of a man sitting opposite him, swathed in the darkness.

A bolt of fear shot through his solar plexus, though still he could not move.

"Leonardo," the man, said, voice softly scolding, "you did not heed my warning. I told you that you would die tonight."

"Shredder!" he whispered.

***

With the sound of Raphael's panic still in his mind, Donatello threaded his way through the various security cameras that littered the top floor, demolishing each one as he approached.

If he had calculated the timing and his movements accurately, or at least to the nearest nano second, all The Shredder's henchmen would see from the security feed would he a progressive shut down of each camera - enough to signify that someone, or something, was approaching, but no detail to work with.

Raphael's revelation was certainly a new wrinkle to contend with, but it didn't change the plan. Saki was cunning, yes, but he was an egotist. He would never knowingly destroy a building with himself still inside it. And Donatello had seen him on the live feed, spinning through a set of complex katas, some of which - unnervingly - Don didn't recognise, with the bladed armour in the background.

Either the explosives were a decoy, a trap, or they were a just part of a multi-layered plan, hopefully not intended for use in the immediate future.

He had to have time.

Had to.

Without time, the plan would never work.

It was this thought that was racing through his mind when he found himself face to face with The Elite.

There were three of them, standing motionless in front of a large archway of architecture, the likes of which Donatello had only ever seen on the television. He stilled instantly, grasping his bo, his breath in his throat and sweat beading on his palms.

The presence of the Elite meant two things: that he had an impossible battle on his hands, and that he was only one door away from Saki.

"Mikey," he whispered, unable to smooth the quavering of his voice.

Mike's voice in his ear. "I'm right behind you, bro. Window. Five o'clock."

Don didn't look over his shoulder. He had to have faith in Mikey - he couldn't betray his presence. "You see them?"

"Yes. I got your back."

Don drew in a breath that was mostly empty air. And then he flew forward, an almighty war cry screaming out of his throat.


	14. Chapter 13 Behind the Deceptions

_This chapter is dedicated to the one and only Sassyblondexoxo. Thank you so much for bearing with me and for still wanting to read What We Call Home after so many long months of neglect from me. You well and truly rock, girl. Sorry for the 15 month gap! It won't happen again. :) xxxxxx_

**Chapter 13**

It had taken every once of strength, will, determination and courage for Donatello to jump into battle with The Elite.

There they were: tall, muscle-bound, glimmering eyes remorseless and blank with the hardened, uncompromising belief of fundamentalism. Up close, Don could smell the musty odour of sweat clinging to their bodies, and see the flecks of hairs on their arms, glinting under the onslaught of light as their biceps tightened in anticipation of Don's attack.

And the spears they wielded, adorned and horrible, were just down right terrifying, even for a cold-blooded killer like Don.

So, as Donatello roared forward, bo spinning in a manic rush over his head, he had to confess to feeling a small gulf of disappointment materialise in the hole in his gut vacated by his brief flash of blood lust, when he landed in the centre of them, ready to strike, to find himself nothing more than the object of their steely-eyed gazes. Not one of them moved. Spears motionless at their sides, faces carved without expression.

Don growled under his breath.

One of them nodded sharply, and Don, preparing himself for an attack from behind, spun around with his bo on the defensive, ready for anything, to find himself staring into an empty hall way.

Alarmed, he spun full circle.

The Elite had left him.

The sudden onset of cold sweat gripped him, and the word 'trap' seared in his mind.

***

In the darkness, Leonardo listened to the sound of human breath as words started to fill the empty space between him and the man kneeling in front of him.

"Leonardo, it is time for you to act. They hold you under lock and key. You do not know that their objective is not to fight you, but to render you helpless and at their mercy. They underestimated your brother and would gladly have left you in the cold room to die."

Leonardo barked harsh words into the nothingness: "You orchestrated this! What is your plan?"

Saki's eyebrow's drew together in amusement, sending cascades of shadows across his face.

"You are very young to carry so much responsibility, Leonardo."

Saki's hands were moving in front of him, toying with something small that in the darkness Leo's eyes could not identify.

"You did not heed my warning, but there is still time. Your brother Donatello is about to enter the sealed room. He is gearing himself for combat, but will be defeated. He is welcomed not by his enemy but by a convoluted and impossible trap. That is why you cannot succumb now, Leonardo. That is why you cannot lie still in this terrible place."

Once again movement in Saki's hands caught Leo's attention.

"Why are you telling me this? What is the purpose of this?" he murmured.

"Because it is not too late."

Leonardo's rush of urgency was subsiding into a far more chilling sense of alarm. The plan had gone horribly wrong, and for some reason the enemy they were working so hard to defeat was happily disclosing details. Why?

He swallowed against a rising lump. "Who was the boy who took me down? Where did he learn to fight like that?"

Saki's mouth formed a cryptic and hypnotic smile. "He is a warrior from a remote village in Japan, educated under the way of the Samurai since infancy. He practices a unique art of aikido te, and his skill is surpassed by few, even his Master. He has been recruited."

"How? Why?"

Saki seemed to contemplate answering Leonardo's flurry of questions, but instead dropped his gaze momentarily to the object in his hands. "While you slept, Leonardo, I whispered to you a warning, to recognise the art of deception."

"Deception?"

"This is all a deception."

Leo shook his head. "I don't understand."

"There is no need for you and your brothers to die tonight."

Leo hesitated, confused, disorientated. The Shredder had never made it his practice to sit and chat with his enemy, no matter how humiliating the defeat had been. Oroku Saki had demonstrated little ability to give a charade of honour or respect. Peals of sweat were beginning to moisten Leonardo's neck, a quiver was working its way into his fingers, which suddenly felt incomplete without the familiar hilt of his katanas in their grasp. He swallowed hard and summoned the courage to give voice to the question that was rising in his mind, unable to disguise the baffled stupefaction in his tone:

"Who are you?"

The man in front of him said nothing, but he smiled softly and dropped his head forward in a small, but sincere bow.

And then he opened his hand.

Something scuttled out of his grasp, quickly, urgently, from him and into an unseen corner.

A rat.

"Open your eyes now, Leonardo."

Leonardo jerked his eyes open. He was lying face down on cold, rough carpet. Alone in a tiny cubicle of a room, with the pervading sour smell of stale human body odour and the hum of a nearby computer fan jarring though the silence. His right arm was hot with wrenching pain and his beak felt sore.

He breathed into the empty room: "Master Yoshi?"

***

The longer he sat, useless and purposeless, the greater Raphael's anger seemed to be.

Rage had spiked his waning consciousness into full, alert awareness.

Leo hadn't returned, Don had dismissed his urgent message about the bomb over his head.

He tightened the bandage on his leg, breathing raggedly through the pain that was still sending flurries of dancing colours through his vision.

Frustrated, he banged a clenched fist into the ground and growled an animalistic moan into the silence around him.

Again, some loose crumblings from the wall over his head, caught in the reverberation of the movement he had caused, peppered down the back of his neck.

Despite his wretched leg and the growing patch of red which was spreading on the bandage, Raphael's frustration and jittery boredom was starting to overcome the chills and clutches of an impending fever. Swallowing a small moan of pain, determined not to let it see light of day, Raphael spread his hands against the wall behind his shell and slowly levered himself up. He rocked himself forward and eased himself into an upright position.

Leo and Donnie might not be taking this threat seriously, but dammit, Raph was the one with his head in the line of fire. He was the one who could sense each second of the countdown, despite the absence of a visible clock.

He turned slowly, mind surprisingly clear, and supported himself with both hands against the fragmenting wall. His eyes tracked the hole drilled into the wall and the riot of wires crawling in - deeper into the walls than Raph could see, or dared to contemplate.

He pulled his wounded leg up slowly to his plastron, and rested the foot against his right knee, muttering quiet expletives under his breath. But he stood the increasing jolts of pain in his left leg, and craned himself upwards, pivoting on the ball of his right foot.

Dammit. He couldn't see. He was too fucking short. Four foot six Raphael added height to his list of gripes about humans before he let himself slump into a half sitting, half standing position, his carapace hitting the wall with a discerning thud. He dropped his head forward and sighed heavily: once, twice, three times as a battle of determination and despair raged against each other inside him.

"Splinter," he mumbled quietly into his chest, "Father. Tell me what to do."

He hadn't expected a reply, not really, but hearing himself vocalise his distress blanched his panic straight out of him. Suddenly he was no longer despairing, no longer preparing to submit to the control of fate. He was going to stop this. If Donnie was otherwise occupied, Raph would have to do it himself.

Determination triumphant, Raphael straightened his body, planted his left foot firmly on the ground, ignored the treacherous pain rocketing up his thigh, and started to hobble purposefully forward.

He knew what had to be done.

***

"Dude. I don't like this. I don't like it one bit."

Don was standing motionless in the doorway of a vast expanse of empty space, with Michelangelo's worried voice in his ear. This was the room he had been watching on the CCTV. This is where he saw The Shredder. A warrior preparing for battle.

The suit, the armour, that awful sight that gave Don goosepimples, had been in encased in a glass cabinet at the back of the room.

But the room was empty. No Shredder; no bladed amour; no glass case.

Just empty, vacated space.

No furniture.

No low-rise table and custom made tea pot.

Everything that had been present on the live feed was gone.

"It's not possible," Don whispered to Mike. "It's been an hour. They couldn't possibly have cleared the room in so short a time."

He stepped forward gingerly, toes curling reluctantly against the shag pile carpet.

"Why would The Elite be guarding the room if Saki's not here?" Don asked.

"Dude, I think we gotta replan the... er, the plan."

"Agreed," Don said, easing his way into the room to explore, leaving the door behind him to start to ease close on its axis. "The Elite didn't defend the room. This is a trap."

There was a pause in his ear. "You mean they wanted us to come in here?" Mike said eventually. "Why?"

Then Don knew: he had to get out of there. He had to leave this room right -

As he turned to run, seeing the door settle closed, he knew he had fallen straight into the trap. Even though he had walked in prepared for a trap, he had been looking for the wrong sort of trap. He was looking for ambush, for The Shredder battle ready.

He hadn't expected this trap.

It never occurred to him that the video he had been watching wasn't a live feed.

It never occurred to him that the room itself had been rigged. He fell against the door, and pulled hard at the handle, but he knew that it was locked before his hands even touched the metal.

"Mikey!" he screamed into the headpiece, the sound of his own voice reverberating in his own ears as he pitched at a volume he seldom used. "RUN!"


	15. Chapter 14 Tarnished Revelations

Chapter 14

Michelangelo knew that there were times for heroics, and times for strategy. He had been perched on the external iron fire escape, peering in through the windows at the back of his brother's head as he stepped into the empty room. When he saw the doors fall shut behind him, he knew that things had gone horribly wrong. His first instinct was to drive his fist through the window and run straight for those huge doors and hammer madly on them until they opened by the force of sheer will, but when he had heard Don's howl of warning, as his mind reeled in and out of a chaos of confusion and panic, it clamped onto an image and would not release its lock:

The eyes of the dead man he found when all this business had begun. They were a blanched blue, in a haze of milky pink whites. They were like empty prisms, desolate, dark. Absent.

Mike felt uncontainable sadness that day. For nineteen years, he had been the victor of a long battle against sadness. Sadness was a constant threat in his life. He had seen its affects - on the criminals he battled, on his father, on his brother. Sadness had the power to destroy all that was wonderful in the world. And Mike long ago had decided that sadness would never claim him as one of its ruined victims. When Mike felt sadness creeping its way into his gut, he was well accustomed to forcing it out with a joke or a funny thought. Since the dead man in the alley, an incident which fell within a year of unspeakable and unrelenting grief, he had been less able to defeat the sadness.

Even in a year where the turtles' world had crumbled, it was the man in the alley that had snapped Michelangelo. Something had been lost that day: his youth, his innocence, his ability to shut out the bad, but whatever it was, Mike knew -- then, at that moment on the fire escape of the New York Stock Exchange, with the wind of Wall Street nipping his skin and the cry of a captured brother in his ears -- that it was time to grow up. Sadness was a reality. They had learned that this year. He had to learn to live with it, to tolerate it, even to continue fighting under it.

He pulled in a painful breath. He would have to leave Don. The only way he could help his brother, his wonderful, hero of a brother who had already saved his life once tonight, would be to obey his instruction.

And find help elsewhere.

"Leo? Raph? You guys there?" he murmured into his mouthpiece and he shrank into the shadows and started to descend the fire escape with as much stealth as he could muster.

There was no answer.

Mike came to a halt four floors from ground level. His body still ached and a new fear clutched his insides: where were they all? what had happened?

Wall Street was shrouded by empty nothingness. With Don's voice still replaying in his ears like a looped scream of agony, Mike dropped to street level and descended down the nearest manhole cover.

He had a plan.

* * *

Don spun on his heel, and stared terrified into the empty space behind him, panting softly as adrenaline bled out of his system.

How could this be it? He had sensed, he had _known_, that tonight was the night: the night he would step up. He had been waiting for this night for years. How could he have so willingly left himself, the pacifistic techno-geek, in the sewers and become the monster he had forced himself to become tonight, when the whole reason for it, the night when he would be the one on whose shoulders the outcome rested, was nothing more than an empty room -- a trap which separated him from his brothers and his enemy?

This was it. Anti climactic. Him trapped in an empty room with no deadly ninja to face, no battle to fight alone and unaided. Trapped there to die in the explosion that was the next stage in The Shredder's plan.

He slumped backwards against the wall. He would have to find his way out of there. If the forward planning that had been applied to confining his brothers into an air conditioned chamber was anything to go by, escape wouldn't be easy.

"Greetings, Donatello."

He jumped. He slid his headset down around his neck. Eyes darted around the chasm surrounding him. That was Saki's voice.

"Where are you?" he said, projecting his voice into the empty space around him.

"I am in an undisclosed location in Manhattan," said The Shredder, "but you will find me on the screen on the wall, opposite the red curtain. Come."

Donatello's eyes locked instantly onto a plasma screen on the wall. He rushed towards it, fierce and ready: if he couldn't engage The Shredder in physical combat, then by God he would defeat him in mental combat.

There he was: small eyes gleaming from behind the mask and helmet. The Shredder, spikes and armour, gazing right at him.

Donatello growled and glared forward.

"Donatello, you are on a live feed. I can see you. Just as you can seem me."

Don's eyes flicked over the equipment and caught sight of a web cam. He gripped his bo tighter and bared his teeth. "Why?"

"Let us not pretend that our history has not embroiled us into games of mastery and deceptions. My intentions have never ended at the death of you, your brothers and that wretched rat. My ambition is far reaching and larger than anything that your primitive experience of the world would ever allow you to fathom. But for years you and your sewer dwelling family have sought to intercept my plans and ruin my triumph. I need you disposed of if I am to achieve the next stage."

Don swallowed. "The next stage?"

And although he couldn't see Saki's mouth, Don could have sworn that he was smiling. "I desire what I have always desired, and always strived for."

"The criminal underworld? The economy?"

A raucous laugh crackled through the sound system. "Foolish turtle. You feign intelligence -- at times even genius, and yet you have failed to see through my guise."

"The crimes led us here didn't they?"

"A fortunate side-effect," Shredder replied, eyes glittering with sadistic victory. "I confess that the pattern to the activity in the city was orchestrated to draw you here, to my strong-hold, in order to ensnare you, but the true purpose was merely the first stage in my steps to take control of the city."

"You're insane," Don breathed.

Amused eyebrows arched. "Insane? Ever this city has thrived on the corrupt and the suffering of those powerless to stop it. In my time I have conquered armies and commanded ancient clans. I have given them purpose. As I will give purpose to this city."

"To what end, Shredder?"

"The city will bend to my will; comply with my wishes."

Don fired back: "Is the power and wealth you have amassed not enough? Are you that power crazed?"

Again, the secretive smirk crossed Saki's eyes. "You think I act in the name of power? For all your intelligence, you disappoint me, Donatello. I act not for power and wealth, but in order to return to Japan and defeat those who exiled me."

Don shook his head in incomprehension.

"Ha! You think you know my history because a rat imparted a month of my life to you in whimsical tales. I will destroy New York City, and your cowardly government will have no choice but to give me what I require."

Don was starting to feel dizzy. "How will you destroy the city?"

"I have demonstrated control over its criminal fraternity -- control which could be unleashed against it any time. If Washington fails to comply, it will be unleashed and the city will devour itself. I have used American system to accumulate unspeakable wealth, which I will use to devastate the country's economy and force the government not to deny me."

And then it was clear in Don's mind. Horror was creeping up his throat, forcing his words out in a breathy flurry. "You would disinvest. Sell your stock all at once."

"Precisely. Perhaps you are not so foolish, Donatello. To withdraw my wealth from the economy would render major funds and companies powerless and unable to meet their financial obligations. The economy would crumble and as we all know, Donatello, a government will do anything in the name of money."

And fear writhed in Don's gut as he gave the matter consideration. What did the government have access to that Saki couldn't steal or manufacture with his own wealth?

The answer had to be nuclear.

"Shredder! They will never give you what you want!"

"Then they will watch as I topple America's greatest cities to the ground, one by one, destroy its citizens, burn its industry, devastate its economy, until they have no choice."

"You'll be caught!"

"Ha! You know little of the way of invisibility for one trained as a ninja, Donatello."

It was at this stage that Donatello started to wonder why The Shredder was revealing his plan to him.

"I will wage war between the countries. With the United States behind me, my enemies will be crushed."

"You're trying to start a war?" Don spluttered. "Billions of people will die."

"That is of little concern to me. I will see the Masters who rebuked me destroyed. I will restore my honour."

"Honour?!" Donatello cried. "You speak of starting a War and then speak of honour?! There is no honour in your words, Shredder."

Saki ignored him. "As you can see, I cannot risk the interference of you and your accursed family. That is why you are here."

"But, but... why the air conditioning? Why the empty room? Why lure us up here with a fake video feed? You've had plenty of opportunities to kill us tonight."

"Our history is such that you and your brothers have succeeded in escape or lucky and undeserved victory. This I could not risk. Both traps have been laid for weeks. It was only a matter of time before your nosy beaks led you right into both traps."

"Why Shredder?" Donatello continued, his voice continuing to crescendo as the unfamiliar clutches of anger clawed savagely at him. "What is our value to you?"

"Turtle, although I stated that my mission does not end with you, there is still redemption to be reclaimed. For I will not rest until he is destroyed. You are of value to him, and when he learns of your predicament he will come to your aid -- and his destruction."

Donatello blinked, confused. "What? Who?"

And The Shredder spat out the words: "The rat."

Donatello felt a surge of anger and devastation. "Don't you ever speak of him!" he bellowed, shifting his bo into an attack stance.

"When he arrives to help you, you will all perish in the explosion which will drop trading and the country's economic security into a strewn rubble."

Donatello straightened. "What?" he uttered, softer now. "Wait --"

But the image of the shredder vanished as the feed was terminated.

Donatello stood still, blinking. He just had time to register the sound of crunching metal gears when a large cage reeled from above, setting itself firmly around him with a wrenching slam. He threw his arms over his head, but the cage was well placed. Shredder needed him alive. He stared around him, his vision of the room now obscured by thick metal bars.

That was why. The Shredder wanted him in that exact spot. That was why the video link and the open explanation of his plans. The Shredder had to offer him a reason to stand there that he could not resist.

But Donatello stifled a small laugh. It was bizarre that such urgent grief and panic could submit to a spike of hope.

He knew The Shredder's plan. The cage was large enough to accommodate all four of them. Maybe their plan had gone wrong, but so had Saki's. His intention was for all four of them to be captured at this stage -- hadn't expected three of them to still be loose.

And The Shredder's plan suffered a fundamental flaw.

He laughed softy, darkly: The Shredder's need to resolve his personal vendetta provided Don and his brothers with an opportunity -- an opportunity to ensure his downfall.

Perhaps it would buy them enough time to save first the Stock Exchange, and then the city.

And in that action, perhaps save Japan from a war of vengeance and ultimate destruction.

Donatello drew in a breath, and secured the headset back into his ear. "Raph? Can you hear me, bro?"

Raph's voice burst onto the line. "Donnie! Yes, where are you? Are you OK? Wha' happened?"

"I'm fine Raph. I'm trapped, but fine. There's uhhh, a new wrinkle, but I'll fill you in later. Did Leo get back to you?"

"No, I ain't heard a peak from him since he said he was in trouble."

"OK well Leo will have to wait. Where are you?"

"In the basement. I've located five more sets of explosives. They seem to be lining the centre -- the core -- of the building."

"Figures -- the building is supposedly blast proof. The external walls can't be destroyed by explosives. I hope you've got your nerves of steel back."

"Bring it on, Donnie."

"OK. Bro, we need to get those explosives disarmed. I'm gonna talk you through it -- OK?"

In his ear he thought he heard Raph gulp.

* * *

With water sloshing around his feet, Michelangelo was starting to feel his strength return as he ran through the sewer tunnels. He had passed out of the range of the band wave some time ago and could no longer pick up his brother's conversations. He ran as fast as he could manage. He needed to get to Donatello's lab.

A world of chaos was raging in his head, but he was surpassing the temptation to allow himself to get caught up in it. And he followed the only strain of clarity he could find: get to the lair; get to Don's lab.

It was like routine, as natural as breathing, as the habitual twist of his wrists and dancing nunchukas. He rounded the last turn in the labyrinth of sewer canals. Get in, get out, back to the Stock Exchange, and to the rescue.

He registered that something was amiss the moment he rounded that corner. The entrance to the lair was open, bricks littering the ground and crumbling in the water. They had been smashed through, revealing a gaping hole the size of a truck.

Nunchukas spinning, Mike stepped forward gingerly, peering into the destruction that earlier today had been his home. It had been everything: comfort, security, love.... his eyelids worked furiously to restrain the tears which were suddenly threatening.

He stepped in discretely and shrank immediately into the shadows. He worked his way silently around the ruined shelter that had nursed his childhood, his dreams, every pizza he had eaten, every argument between the teenage brothers, every reconciliation, every sparring session, every martial arts lesson, every embrace from his father.

As he eased himself tentatively into the dojo, he stopped.

And in front of him, turning to greet him with surprised eyes, bladed shoulders glinting in the dim light, vicious helmet giving him the height of a giant, was Oroku Saki himself.

* * *

_OK, so we are making progress and as you have probably gathered from this chapter, the conclusion is nigh! A few more chapters to go, but questions start being answered from this point forward. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. _


	16. Chapter 15 The Productivity of Grief

**Chapter 15**

Somehow - and he had no idea exactly how - Raphael had managed to scout the basement and had found other strategically placed clusters of wires bulging from the brickwork at the base of the ceiling. He shouldn't have been able to do it, but the pain in his leg must have ebbed out of him at some stage, because as he scrambled from point to point, the fact that he was in pain slipped out of his mind, quite unnoticed.

Perhaps his body was shooting endorphins through his blood, or maybe he really just was that hard-ass that he could fight through even such unspeakable pain as a thigh ripped by shuriken. Raphael would gladly have put it down to either of these possibilities. However, as he lowered himself to the ground having completed his mini scout mission, he felt his mind issue a silent thank you to his father.

And sure enough, with five sets of explosives identified, the pain started to claw back into his leg.

He heaved a quiet breath of apprehension.

Leo was gone, he'd not heard a word from Don or Mike since Don's terror choked warning for Mike to run. And no sign of The Foot that apparently were so desperate to find the turtles who had gone missing from the refrigeration chamber. Everything had to have gone wrong.

Jigsaw pieces of potential plans were starting to jumble around in his head - plans where he would have to complete the mission alone - when Don's voice once again reached his ear. He sounded strained but confident and Raph would have cheered with relief if the situation weren't so fucking grim.

But then there was a new grip in his intestine. He listened, attempting to resist the crawling and twisting of a breed of anxiety he had never known before in his gut, as Don told him he would have to disarm the explosives.

That was a whole issue in itself: Raph was great at destroying things, bringing an end to their life, usually he employed the strategy of beating the crap out of the offending object until the damn thing couldn't possibly function.

Raph was not so good at delicate, patient, steady-handed work, not when an inaccurate move or an accidental twitch of the fingers could blow the entire building into the Heavens.

He swallowed. "Wait, Don, you just said the building's blast proof - don't that make it, well, you know, blast proof?"

"Sadly not," Don's voice answered. "The outer walls are the blast proof bit. Sounds to me like your explosives are designed to crumble the building at the core. It'll fall downwards instead of outwards."

"Son of a...."

"OK, bro, no time to waste."

"Don," Raph whispered, dropping his voice into a confessional tone, "you ain't serious, bro. You know I ain't got the needle work thing down. There's no way I can do this."

Don's voice was firm. "Raph, you have to. I know you can do it. Just, you know, think back to Master Splinter in the dojo when we were young. Remember how frustrated you got when you were learning to use your sai? Remember how you just kept dropping them? This is the same. Splinter made you persevere and you accomplished really complex and delicate work. I know that you can do this."

Raph took a breath and held it for a moment. "OK, Donnie," he said softly. "Bring it on."

"OK, you're going to need something sharp to cut wires with. Anything you can lay your hands on? You may have to go upstairs to find something."

"Go upstairs? Donnie....." Raph snapped.

"You can't disarm a wired device without something to cut them with, Raph."

The idea of venturing back into the main body of the building when his ruined leg felt as though it were anchoring him to this very spot sent shivers of hopeless anger through Raph's skin. But before he could indulge it, an idea struck him. He paused, thought for a moment, and then let his fingers slip into the pouch on his belt. As he withdrew his hand he stared hard at the object in his grasp and its lethally sharp curves of metal: the blood stained shuriken.

* * *

Michelangelo had never expected a lone confrontation between himself and The Shredder to be a simple ordeal, so to find himself face to face with him, in his own home, and to not engage instantly in combat felt unnatural and just plain rude.

But The Shredder did not attack. He merely locked eyes with Mike and growled a guttural rumble of rage. "What?" he roared, eyes squinting with fury. "How did you escape?"

"Never mind that, Shred-head!" Michelangelo retaliated with a snarl and whirling weapons. "What are you doing here? How did you find this place?"

"I have come for the rat! But it looks as though I will have to finish you both off!"

"The rat?" Mike almost laughed, despite the sudden writing in his solar plexus. "Oh dude. You lose. Sucks to be you!"

Saki lurched forward, reaching out to seize Michelangelo, who promptly leapt out of the way. "What?"

Michelangelo threw himself into a double twist and clung onto a pipe which had served as a wonderful refuge during many a sparring session.

He closed his eyes briefly, before announcing to Saki's enraged eyes: "You need to do your research a little better next time. We lost Splinter four months ago. He's dead."

* * *

Leonardo pushed himself shakily to his feet and let his eyes dance rapidly around the room for a clue as to where he was. The room was musty and home only to a work bench loaded with technology. He wished suddenly for Donatello's comforting presence. His shoulder was screaming with protracted agony and he quickly diagnosed that it had been dislocated, and he grasped it with a hungry sense of violation.

The undeniable presence of Master Yoshi still hung in his memory, a ghost of a voice, and the scent of candles. But it brought with it grief. Four months had passed since the turtles beloved father had left their lives, a peaceful departure for which they had been waiting in stunned and terrified silence for three days, when Splinter had not been able to get out of bed one morning, and told them that his time had come.

Leonardo had been brave. Splinter had summoned each of the turtles for a private conversation and to say his goodbyes in his last hours. He whispered to Leonardo promises of honour and duty in his future, and told him that he loved him like no other, and that he was proud of who he had become and who he was yet to be. Leonardo remained stoic and returned his father's love with warm words. He shed his tears privately, later. He did not want to cause his father any distress by crying.

They buried him at Casey's grandmother's farmhouse in Northampton. Leonardo was brave then too, and spoke of his father as a noble warrior, a wise teacher, a loving father. Casey and April attended. Casey kept a hand on Mikey's shoulder as the youngest turtle wept openly. April held Don's hand, her eyes damp, and silent tears tracked glistening lines down Don's face. Raphael stood back, his face hard and impenetrable. Leo remained brave, brave for each and every one of them.

Very little was spoken in the lair during the days that followed. The four of them sat in helpless silence for what felt like an eternity. Raphael confined himself to the dojo and after two weeks of dry eyes and numb anger, grief came to him when he lost his temper over a weapon kata he was struggling to master. Leo held him through an hour of urgent grief, so exhausting for Raphael that he eventually fell asleep with tears still trailing from his closed eyes.

But Leonardo remained brave.

He had been brave ever since. As Don, Mike and Raph seemed to return to themselves, and laughter crept once again back into their lives, and ordinary living resumed, Leo felt still the chasm of uncried tears inside him.

And now Master Yoshi's presence brought back to Leonardo the memory of Splinter, a memory which opened the empty, hollow well in the pit of his stomach. And grief was crawling in his throat. Tears were so close and so overwhelmingly powerful, that he felt the battle against them could not be won this time. He lifted a hand to his face to cover his eyes.

And could not help but wish desperately for his father's presence in that hopeless moment.

But then he was there: Splinter. Not as Master Yoshi had appeared to him, but a feeling, a rush of unspoken words, their meaning pushed into his mind under instruction that was not Leonardo's own. In that moment, Leo knew, unequivocally, without a shadow of a doubt, that Splinter was with him, in every moment of every single day and that he would have a chance to grieve sufficiently when the night's mission had been completed. The mission was more important than a single turtle. The City and millions of lives might be lost if he didn't garner every ounce of self control he had ever possessed.

So he did. He swallowed his tears and eased himself to his feet.

* * *

"OK, Raphie. I need you to tell me exactly what you see."

Raphael frowned. "We got a hole drilled in the wall. All I can see is about two inches of jumbled wires going into the hole."

"Hmm." Don's voice sounded measured and thoughtful. "OK, very carefully, I need you to ease the device out of the hole. Be careful, it could be sitting pretty deep in there and any sudden moves might set it off."

Raph sighed. "Well ain't that fuckin' peachy." He planted his hands against the wall and grit his teeth. "Donnie, do me a favour will you?"

"What?"

"I want you to take your headset off for a minute."

"Raph, why?" Don's voice replied, clipped with impatience.

"I got my reasons, Donnie - just do it OK?"

Don, obviously detecting the warning in Raph's voice, replied softly: "Alright Raph. I'm gonna give you sixty seconds."

Raph didn't say anything else. Satisfied that Don would keep his word, he used his hands to lift his crippled left leg up at a right angle, so that the bloodied bandage faced the ceiling. Breathing hard, he slipped his left elbow pad down onto his forearm. He was going to face this square on. He had to be able to reach the ceiling - and he was never going to be able to perform the jump required without some serious fuel. And Raphael had one fuel source which never failed him: rage.

Eyes forward, boring into the brickwork, he drew his left forearm into his chest, so that his elbow hovered directly above his leg.

He growled a determined glower into the wall.

And drove his elbow into the hole in his thigh with as much force as he could.

Exquisite pain exploded inside him: in his leg, his solar plexus, his head, his chest, igniting the flame, releasing jittery, indignant fury. Raph let out an agonised howl, and slammed his leg down into the ground, using it to propel himself upwards in an explosive leap up to ceiling level, with the scream still rippling from his throat.

His vision crystal clear with the enlivening and devastating pain, he seized the pipework in the ceiling with one hand and hung there, legs dangling, and heard the droplets of blood splattering onto the ground beneath him. Damn. Donnie was going to have a fit when he found out about this. Teeth gritted and a growl of anger on his lips, Raph used his free hand to reach forward gingerly.

He didn't know how long he had left before Don replaced his headset, and Raph didn't want him to have to live the rest of whatever life he had left with the sound of his tempestuous hot head of a brother blowing himself up in his mind. Nor did he want him to realise that in order to give himself the capacity to perform the maneuver, he had to spur himself.

Driven by the pain and anger, Raphael slipped his fingers into the hole, feeling the bunching of wires under his grasp.

He held his breath.

Let his hand close softly over the device. He felt numerous sheathed wires, coiled around something small, solid.

His breath sounded tortured and wheezy.

Walls felt like they were caving in.

Pearls of sweat were moistening his bandana at his temples.

His heart thumped manically, forcing another growl from his throat.

Slowly, he retracted his arm, feeling no resistance from the device inside the wall. He drew his hand out and stared at the item in his grasp. It was small, the size of a calculator, adorned with multiple wires, a chaos of power, with no discerning logic.

Carefully, he released his grip on the pipe, and let himself drop to the ground. He caught himself steady with springs in his knees, and the pain in his left leg forced a grunt as he landed.

But he landed safely, and the device did not detonate.

He lowered himself into a rudimentary squat, and let his legs slide underneath him. Placing the device on the floor between his knees, he knelt on both legs, hooking his toes over each other and rested his hands on his thighs. He needed to stay focused: couldn't risk sitting down or succumbing to the agony screaming through his body. So he maintained the formal dojo seiza kneel, pulling air into his lungs like it was running out, pushing his mind through the torment in his left leg, until Don's voice piped up in his ear.

"Raph?"

"I'm here, Donnie."

"You got it?"

Raph sighed. "I got it," he replied grimly.

* * *

It was the first time Michelangelo had said the words aloud. Although he had known for four months that Splinter was dead, although he had shed his tears and mourned the loss, he had not yet heard the words spoken. Even at the Funeral, no-one said the words: "He is dead." Even when it happened, when his father's last breath whispered out of his small, old body, soft and smooth and oh so fragile, the four present turtles had simply shared the knowledge in unspoken unity.

Hearing the words should have been jarring. But they weren't.

Saki stopped. "You mean, this has been a waste of my time?" he glowered.

"Well," Michelangelo shrugged, "not a total waste. Gives me the opportunity to kick your butt." He grinned.

There was a moment when Mikey saw the anger of a plan not come to fruition cross what was visible of The Shredder's face. There was a moment when The Shredder was forced to reconsider his plan.

And in that moment, as they locked eyes and launched into battle, Mikey knew that The Shredder was going to fall, right here, right now, at his hand.

* * *

"Talk to me, Raph," Don's voice was clear in his ears. "Tell me what you see."

"It's, uhh, a single unit - heavy duty alloy I think, 'bout the size of my cell phone." Raph winced at the sound of his words: a rush of breathless, hurried speech, his voice cracking. "There's a counter on it."

Don interrupted before he could continue: "How long's on the counter?"

"Forty-two minutes and thirty one seconds."

"And?"

"Uhh, the unit has a wad of C4 bound with some kinda tape. Three gold connectors at the base, and uh, four more underneath. Small circuit board."

"Wires?"

"Yeah."

Raph knew that Don was asking for specifics, but Don's voice was calm as he probed. "How many?"

"I can't tell - there's a whole mess of them." Raph turned it over gently in his sweat-logged palm.

That was when Raphael felt the panic, as he took in the chaos of components, meaninglessly wedged together with tape and suffocating under a sea of crazy wiring. It may as well have been fucking alien technology. He couldn't make head or tail of it. There was just no way that Don would be able to translate his ramblings into an image clear enough to talk him. Anger tightened its fist around his trachea and Raphael moaned out a furious snarl.

"Raph," Don's voice soothed in his ear. "I need you to take a deep breath, OK? It'll be fine. You're describing a classic set-up. You're doing great. I need you not to lose it. Breathe, bro."

Despite the pang of anger, Raphael obeyed his brother and sucked in a sharp breath.

"Describe the wires for me. Give me colours and connections."

Raph swallowed. "Uhh, blue, black and red, all tangled up in each other and lots of yellow. I'd have to pick them apart to see where they're connected."

"Don't do that, Raph. We can't risk you tripping it and setting it off."

Sweat was draping itself over Raph's brow, logging his bandana, coating his palms with a slippery shimmer. Each breath he gasped in sounded sick and truncated. "Wires attached from circuit breaker to timer - one black, three red, two green, and one interwoven blue and white."

"Wait! Raph, the blue and white one. That's it."

"How do you know, Brainiac?" Raph whispered.

"Bro, you gotta trust me. If you don't trust me then you won't be able to cut the wire."

"OK, just tell me, what happens if I cut the wrong wire?"

"Then you get blown up. One detonation won't be enough to take the building support out, but it would be enough to kill you."

"Very comforting."

"You asked, bro."

"OK. What we're doing is we're gonna stop the count-down. It's all we can do without seriously risking an explosion. You can do this. You're doing great."

Raph swallowed hard. "OK Donnie. It's just you and me now. What do I do?"

"I want you to cut the blue and white wire."

"Just.... cut it? just like that?"

"Yup. Take out that bad boy."

Raph reached in, towards the wire, to take it between his fingers, but his hands were tremoring, sending a series of spasms through to his fingers. His fingers brushed the wire, but made contact with a bunch of black wires, too.

He withdrew his hand quickly. "Shit."

"What?"

Raph growled.

"Easy, Raph. Steady. Breathe."

Raph exhaled a wheezy sigh, and closed his eyes. His mind tugged him back, and he pictured himself in the lair, at Splinter's bedside. His eyes were shut, bleeding a trail of languid tears. He felt Splinter's clawed paw brush the top of his hand. "Raphael, my son," Splinter's languishing voice husked. "Do not let your anger at the world destroy you. When you feel its cold grasp on your heart, be strong, fight. When your hand trembles with rage and frustration scours your skin from the inside, breathe the cool air and remember that your father is always with you, even in death."

He opened his eyes.

Breathed in slowly.

Placed the shuriken under the thick wire.

Held his breath.

And sliced the wire through with the blade of the weapon, and waited for the darkness.


End file.
